Living with the Flinstones

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Meraba (hello in turkish)
For the last couple of days I felt liek I was living with Barney Rubble and the whole gang. My 11 hour bus ride was worth it. I checked into my "Cave Hostel," where for $4 a night I got a reasonably nice bed. I decided to not waste any time and take the full day tour even though I had only slept about 3 hours on the bus.
Though I was extremely tired the tour was well worth it. It gave me a really nice over view of the Cappadocia area which is massive and consists of like 12 different cities. We visited this crazy underground city that wen 6 stories underground. It was complete with a venitlation system and even a winery. These caves have been used for over 1500 years and have been lived in by 3 different groups of people including the Byzantines, the Romans and some other group.
We also visited a smaller version of the grand canyon call the Ihala Valley. I hiked up into the walles of the valley and expored 1000 year old churches built into the walls of the valley complete with frescos on the wall of jesus and his deciples.
The next day I decided to do a bit of hiking. I decided to do a long 12 kilmoter hike through the different valleys. I got a bit lost and ended up trecking through all these different underground caves. Continuing my steak of being the worst hiker ever I didn't bring water, of food or a flashlight. As the worst hiker ever I felt it was my responsibility to treck into the underground caverns dug thousands of years ago and use my camera's flash as a flashlight. I would take a picture using the flash and then us the picture as my guide. After the third of fourth tunel I decided that I had had enough and escaped death too many times so I turned around. On my way out I discoverd a freaking bone. If I wasn't already scared that did the job and I picked up my pace as i trecked towards the right direction in the valley. The hike was amazing I passed yellow valleys (honey valley) white valley and love valley (red valley) it was crazy...
I spent two more days here exploring all the valleys I could easily have stayed here another week. I even booked a hot air balloon ride but didn't realise that my plane was leaving today and almost forgot to get back to istanbul..Oops. ..but after a nother 12 hour bus ride I am back in Istanbul. We leave tonight for Cairo where we'll meet up with Gadi and Addie. Can't wait
It's still Ramadan or Ramazan as they call it here. To quote a famous philosopher Lloyd West about the end of Ramadan, "I can imagine Turkish couples around the country waiting around naked with a unlit cigarrette in one hand a doner kebab in the other waiting for fast to break." haha
Lloyd also recently had a run in with a scam artist from Turkey. The guy brought lloyd to a bar oredered a round and then pretended to not know that beers cost 300 dollars a piece...yeah a piece. Luckily lloyd was smart and hid is credit card....few
Off to Cairo wish me luck
Gule Gule (bye bye in Turkish)

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Photos

Humble abode
$4 a night for a bed in a cave. Not bad

What the?
After exploring the caves I thought it ws time to leave when I found a bone...yeah umm good bye

Shrooms?
Nope just some "fairy chineyes." These take 30 million years to make. I asked the tour guide "why did peope makd them?" Silly Adam they are natural.

Silly Camel
I tried to pet him, but he tried to spit on me.

Living like a flinstone
cool huh?

More flinstone houses'
Had to stop the tour bus to take this picture.

Comments

[griffin]

jc's
Adam, are u wearing jerusalem cruisers, bc those are for sure not rainbows!

[beaulaurier]

Cappadocia is freaking sweet, no? But also very easy to die in. They don't take as many safety precautions as we do in the states (e.g. roped off areas, railings, etc). My sister and I almost hiked off a cliff into a 80 foot slot canyon. It was pretty cool.

[mandy]

wow! looks amazing!
Hi! We are traveling to Turkey in a few months, and would love the name of the cave-hotel you stayed in, as well as any other must-sees in the country. What are the general daily expenses? Thanks for the great blog and info! [e-mail]