Rockin' Cappadocia

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Cappadocia is pretty awesome. Strangely enough we have met several other Kiwis and countless Aussies so it seems we are taking over the place, and it's not even April!

The rock formations and caves around here are pretty cool. Yesterday we saw the underground city of Derinkuyu which is 72m deep but you can only go down to 35 these days. Its very cool (literally and figuratively) down there as you wind your way through cave passages and down into the dark. There are churches, schools, stables, kitchens and even a torture chamber. Thankfully the Christians and others who lived in these caves aren't as small as the VietCong and everyone managed to crawl their way around without too many troubles.

Next stop was the Ihlara Valley. It's quite pretty but hard to appreciate when we've seen so many beautiful mountains and valleys on this trip. We wandered along and had lunch by the river where we chatted to the aforementioned Kiwis (turned out I actually had met Sarah before when I was working for Atlantis!).

Stopping to see the 'star wars' movie set was pretty cool, I was even tempted to get out my headscarf from Iran and play Jedis....pity we didn't pick up a lightsaber in Bangkok!

The Selime Monastery was one of the highlights. It's an awesome collection of caves and rooms carved into the mountainside overlooking a lush green valley. The British guys we were with thought it would be a great place for laser strike, unfortunately there were pits everywhere for cooking that wouldn't be so great to come across in the dark.

The Fairy Chimneys were kinda cool and of course lots of crude jokes were made, though they weren't quite as bad as the rocks in Love Valley (we bought a postcards, don't worry)....

The open air museum here in Goreme was pretty neat also, lots of old churches cut into the rock with beautifully preserved frescoes painted on the arches and roof. It was amazing to see how well they have lasted considering theyve been sitting in damp caves since the 11th century!

We also visited an old caravanserai which was pretty romantic. Kinda neat to see how the old overlanders would have done it. Corb would have been keen to stay there like the traders once may have but I prefer the hostel.... the beds were straw on the ground and it smelled pretty camelly.

But now having rocked Goreme and Cappadocia we are off to the coast for a little R&R. We've booked a treehouse with two of the Kiwis we met and we plan to spend our time checking out the ruins of Olimpos (well, one of the Olimpos') and lying on the beach, nice.

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Comments

[caz]

tree house!?!
how fit for a monkey!!! i want to stay in a tree house... *jealous* glad to read you're still having fun, wana stop in canada to visit me on the way home?? huh?? huh?? huh???