Day 8 – Our new friend “Merhaba”

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Finally, we could enjoy our breakfast under the sun. We still didn’t see the famous hot air balloons, advertised on every postcard of Cappadocia. That day, we ended up walking along the “fairy chimneys” Valley and the “Zemi Valley”. We tried one more time to enter “El Nazaar”.



The church was open this time, however we had to pay 5 TL (Turkish Lyra) per person. Noticing we were hesitating, the church’s warder agreed to let us in for only 5 TL for both of us. The walls were beautiful and the paintings still in a good state. Even having paid 10 TL would have been worth it. After a while, the man came back to us to explain and tell us all about the paintings. He then offered us to have a tea in his little office.



He was not only working there as a warder, but he was also a masseur in Turkish baths. He offered to massage my boyfriend (in a Turkish way, that means quite energetically) what seemed to be nice. Then it was my turn and we drank a tea with him. What a great experience! This is Turkish kindness and hospitality.



We wanted to continue to “Zemi Valley” but we couldn’t do this alone. “Merhaba” (The name we gave the dog) liked us too much and definitely had to come for a walk with us. So he followed us, and we walked about two hours together with the animal, waiting for us when we were too slow for his four trained paws. We brought him back afterwards, which was quite difficult, because he didn’t want to let us go.



Later on, we went to the sunset point again, for a picnic, before going for an ice-cream to the man that had asked us every single day: “Do you want an Ice-cream?”. My idea, Bad idea. The ice-cream had a really weird taste and what is more, we paid 10TL for this, so the same price as our diner. We tried the “Özlem Restaurant” recommend by the “Guide du Routard 2014/2015”- Their “vegetables durum” and chicken one, with a lentil soup and vinegar vegetables were just amazing! We paid 20 TL for both of us, with a tea to finish.

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