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Published: August 28th 2014
When a stranger offers you a lift in a foreign country as you are standing on a street corner waiting for a bus, you can't help but be dubious. Is he really doing it just 'to be hospitable' or will he kidnap us? We could easily end up in tomorrow's news, or worse, a carpet shop. Thrift and curiosity surpassed common sense and I know that my parents will read this and give me a telling off when I get home.
By the way, I've got a cat sitting on me as I type this. I'm sat on the terrace of my hotel, looking down on Goreme with a stray that loves me, but also seems to like my cream cheese crisps. He's also trying to stop my type, this is just like being at home with my own cats.
Anyway, back to our journey here. The guy who gave us a lift just wanted to chat. Yes, he is a carpet mender and yes, he did ask if I like carpets. I said that I did to be polite, but I'm quite indifferent to them really. He dropped of us in the centre of Goreme which is a
small town of many cave hotels and shops. There are many conical rocks throughout the area and it is one of the most unique towns I've ever visited. It is a total tourist trap these days, so Mr Carpet Mender works in Goreme but it's too expensive for him to live there and thus he lives in Nevsehir - it's only 10minutes away.
We decided to hire a car as there's loads to see and although there are tours, we prefer to do our own, no more carpet shops for us. Hiring a car is simple, Glyn handed over driving licence, passport and money and we were given keys, no checking for damage or advice on breaking down or emergencies. It was extra for both of us to drive and we decided not worth it.
Finding our hotel 'Cave Life' wasn't easy despite it being a small town. The roads are 1st gear steep, narrow and uneven, people look at you like you're mad when asking for a street map and asking for directions - just don't go there, I will never do that again on this holiday. Our own guide maps only gave a few street names
and no one in Turkey so far (apart from helpful woman in Istanbul) understands maps. At all. So we got lost for some time until I decided to switch on data roaming and for just under 3 quid, google maps got us there.
Cave Life by far is the best hotel we've stayed at in Turkey, like most hotels here it is all cave rooms. Like most hotels we end up staying in, it's right at the top edge of town which means it is up a narrow and steep hill but we do get a good view of the town. It also has two really cute playful kittens.
First place we went to was Goreme Open-air museum which holds the greatest concentration of rock-cut chapels in Cappadocia dating from 9AD onwards. You can go in most of the chapels and rooms that are cut out of the rocks, some have paintings in them and you're not allowed to photograph inside of those. It was rather full of tourists but really fascinating and we were there for an hour and a half. Naturally it was baking hot. And naturally there was a lot of uphill.
We then
continued to Zelve which gets a fraction of the write up in my guide book compared to Goreme Museum. It's half the price, very empty and loads better. This was an entire town, so had actual dwellings and places where crops were ground and a winery. It also it very steep and immense, you need to be fairly fit to get around it. Poor Glyn was suffering in the heat as he's unfortunately had a jippy belly all day. He almost threw up in one of the caves.
After what must have seemed an eternity to Glyn we got back in the car, listening to a local radio station as we do not know how to switch it off and headed to Devrent Valley where we could pull up by the road side and photograph all the strange shaped rocks. According to Glyn's guide, this area is also called Imagination Valley as 'like a child looking at the clouds' you can make out various forms in the rocks including a dolphin, Napoleon's Hat and the Virgin Mary. I can't say that I saw any of these things, maybe you have to want it more than I did.
We
carried on to Pasabaglari, which also is a roadside stop but still has tat stalls and the two saddest looking camels I have ever seen. This is where we saw the 'Fairy Chimneys', rocks that look like giant mushrooms. Let's be honest, they also look like giant grey nobs and I am sure that this is what the writers of our guide books are really thinking when they talk of mushrooms.
There were caves we could climb into, and small holes in the cave ceilings so that it was possible to climb up. It wasn't easy but the Japanese tourists made short work of it, making it look simple. I managed to scramble up clumsily but I have had experience at 'Awesome Walls'...
Afterwards Glyn went back to the car as he was feeling very unwell. I quickly headed off to take a few more photos when a young Turkish girl stopped me, holding a camera. I thought she was asking me to take a photo of her with her friends, but in fact, they wanted of photo of them with me in it! One of them put her arm around me and it was a bit close,
but I asked that they take a photo on my camera too. They obliged and I said 'Thank you'. They actually mimicked me, repeating my 'Thank you' in a mock English voices, the bloody cheek! I guess they were in awe of the classiness of a Stokie accent.
Our final stop was at Cavusin, which doesn't get a mention in my guidebook but was recommended by our friendly hotel guy (note the Cave Life Hotel added Glyn as a friend on facebook not long after he booked and when Glyn tagged them in a photo, it was liked very quickly). Cavusin is a village that has an abandoned area at the back, up the hill. There's parts that say 'forbidden' but there were a handful of us up there and a closed cafe at the top. I don't know how recently it was abandoned but the rubbish left behind makes me think not that long ago. It's a bit like the other places we've visited today, only with litter. Good view from the top though.
Back to Goreme and Glyn waved to Mr Carpet Mender as he saw him outside his shop, mending a carpet as you would
expect.
The sun was beginning to set and we went to a view point that is just behind our hotel to watch it go down. Glyn managed to get himself a new friend who said he lived in London, but had driven here, he had to point out his car with British number plate as he hated the idea that we didn't believe him. The truth is, poor Glyn was so ill, he didn't care.
So we're back at the hotel, a black and white tom cat sat on Glyn's jippy belly before he befriended me. I'm outside typing this blog and Glyn is inside being ill. He better improve tomorrow, I have a massive itinerary planned!
PS, there's more photos at the bottom of this blog, scroll right down to the bottom for the fairytale mushroom rocks!
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Jenny Walton
non-member comment
Hi, Sorry to hear about Glyn. Try Coke. It's good for settling stomachs. I can't tell you off about hitching lifts as I've done it - once all the way to Paris and back, but at the time I was a lot younger than you are now. I see what you mean about the 'mushrooms'. Puts me in mind of Egypt's Western Desert, where rocks are sculpted by wind-borne sand. The locals were jumping up and down excitedly saying 'you must recognised this one'. Well, it was just a big lumpy lump of rock to me and they found it incomprehensible that I did not recognise the spitting image of the football world cup... What's football I hear you say - well you were brought up properly, so good response.