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Published: April 15th 2009
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One of Goreme
Lit up by night, this chimney was looking pretty good, despite the efforts of Human termites. Our first sight of Cappadocia came shortly after our arrival - having been dropped at a town called Goreme in the dark at 5am. The dawn light teased us with such a treat - the whole town was partially blanketed in fresh snow, enhancing Goreme's mindblowingly fascinating landscape. Ditching our packs, we were immediately enthralled by walking the roads surrounding the unusual rock formations, with more modern buildings blending in and around rooms chiselled out of the hillsides.
Beginning with volcanic eruptians that formed a nice soft blanket, the following centuries of selective erosion provided "Fairy Chimneys", unusual mushroom shaped, more erosion resistant rock formations - perfect for sensibly minded people to dig into for a nice little hobbit hole. During the Christian Byzantine era, the region had a golden era, with many developments for peoples' lives, worship, and burials making good use of the new nooks and crannies in the rocky landscape. The result is a whole region of outstanding natural beauty combined with hillsides riddled with the efforts of people past and present.
We marvelled at the ability of people to not only dig out a room in rock, but to provide an internal access route to
the other levels - and leaving enough rock in between levels to defy time (and their dance parties?). But as often as not, we were marvelling at other hilly developments that were exposed and in chaos following the splitting and crumbling of their external walls. What nature had started, Humans accelerated through their considerable destabilisations, and a dynamic combo of further erosion and earthquakes brought down the tender landscape refuges. The resulting views into people's rocky abodes gives glimspes of rooms, pigeon roosts, and decorated church facades.
We attacked Capadoccia in two differrent ways - a lot of walking through its snowy ridges and two days of tours taking us to quite different highlights not easily accessed independently, and the combo of these two approaches was excellent.
Our hostel arranged a low key day of sightseeing around Goreme - more of a driven, self-directed tour. Most of the quality sights were part of the 'Green Tour', taking us to the fantastic underground city of Derinkuyu - apparently the most extensive of the many cities discovered and opened. The narrow passages lead from one massive chamber to the next, complete with rock millstone wheels that could be rolled to
close off the passageways in time of need - a number of invaders laid waste to everything they could find, causing huge destruction to the Goreme area, especially its Churches as the expression of their differing religion.
Given an allocation of 15 or 30 minutes in each place to go exploring, Benj was taking every opportunity to dive off - racing up to humble abodes off the track of the Ihlara Valley, and exploring tunnels and caves in monasteries. Having long drained the poor torch battery, and in state of high excitement, he went exploring down one dark tunnel feeling ahead with hands to avoid walloping his head (again) on the low ceiling. Instead, the ground dissapeared from under his feet, as the blackness concealed a pit at the end of the tunnel. At the expense of some profound buttock bruising, his fall into the pit was prevented. A better equipped inspection reveled a meter deep pit with some rubbish - it could have been 30 metres deep. Needless to say, he was a little more cautious from then on in, and walking slightly stiffly.
Our independent plodding of the Goreme Open Air Museum, and the red and
Early morning rise
These guys are a sure starter for any morning that is still and cool. After arriving at 5:30am, we were fortunate to see them without loosing even more sleep... pink valleys had us assaulting many small summits or houses that tweaked our curiosity - which meant all of them. The Museum had some beautiful artwork detailing many biblical scenes which was the best artwork we were to see in the region. But the competition with large tour groups being herded into the small caverns by their shepherds was frustrating, leading to our love of exploring the less trodden pathways into the snow.
While it was pointed out on a number of occasions that the little surviving artwork was testament to the tolerance of the dominant Muslim religion, there was considerable evidence of defacing the Human figures in many of the Churches' artwork. Sometimes just the eyes, and often the whole face had been unceremoniously scratched away. Muslim art is an entirely different experience to Christian. No symbols or Human forms are present, as this draws the focus from God to either idol or personality worship. For the humble shepherds who used some of these caves to shelter their stock or live in, this art must have seemed absoutely alien.
Blessed with the cold and dark evenings to pass before retreating to our small hostel room - unsurprisingly
Rose and Red Valleys
Just out of Goreme, these two valleys made exceptional strolling. chiselled into the rock, we were fortunate to meet a delightful British couple with a keen interest in learning to play the game 500 (to our delight at finding a similarly minded foursome to play with). Not only coming to grips with the intricacies of the game, Lara launched a blistering bidding attack, carrying Benj to an unequivocal victory over team Michael - Arlene.
Cappadocia is one of Turkey's many tourism draw cards, and we loved every minute of it. It was partly the bountiful sense of freedom we had to explore hidden corners to our hearts content with little restriction, reliving every exciting apect of Benj's chilhood fascination with dark tunnels.
Many thanks to this little town parked amidst a region with the most magnificent and imaginative creativity.
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