Caves in Capadocia

---

This was like a trip back to the stone age - I stayed in a cave ala the Flintstones in a town called Goreme. The hostel was a series of rooms that had been cut into the soft rock of the surrounding hills to make rooms. This style of building was used throughout Capadocia to build cities underground which the locals used as defensive homes. They had rooms for livestock, churches and kitchens. The whole complex could stretch several stories underground. On the first night, we went to a 'Turkish Night' which was meant to be all you can eat and all you can drink with belly dancers and whirling Dervishes. It sounded good, but turned out to be really crap. The food wasn't unlimited and the booze definitely wasn't. The Dervishes were very dissappointing and they looked like amateurs or trainees. The other people at the night were a bus load of 50 Koreans and they left before it ended, so our table got thrown out at 11pm. The belly dancer was incredibly ugly and had a glass eye. Dan got called up to dance with her, which was pretty amusing.

I took two tours arrange from Pamukkale which each lasted a day and went to several sites. The first went to the amazing Red or Rose Valley - it is a huge canyon with volcanic 'fairy chimneys' which are plumes which have cooled to form rock pinnacles. At the end of a valley was a village cut into the canyon side which was used by early Christians to hide from the Muslims. The tour then went on to an underground village which I just managed to fit into and had to get on my hands and knees to get through some tunnels! The second tour ended at a Greek village which was empty as the Greeks and Turkish did a population swap. The second tour went another village carved into the fairy chimeys which was amazing. It was a monastery and was surrounded by vinyards and fruit trees (apples and apricots). We then went to the Goreme Open Air Museum which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and has another early Christian monastery in caves. Lots of the frescos are really well preserved today. They estimate the population of the village to be around 300 people. The Christians had to hide their churches in caves as they were persecuted by the local Muslims. I also visited an onyx jewellery factory and a pottery factory where they make Ottoman tiles. The tours also included lunch and Dan did his best to get his money's worth.

I met two Dutch guys who had driven from Tunisia through Libya, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria. They are on their way back to Holland via Eastern Europe. Apparently petrol in Libya cost 0.01 euros per litre! Turkey on the other hand is stupidly expensive at about 1 euro per litre - putting it right up there with most other European countries.

---

Photos

Fairy chimneys
The tall thin one looks like the Virgin Mary praying apprently.