Aug. 28- Arriving at Goreme (the main town in Cappadocia for basing your trip) at 5.30am with the sun coming up, we realized immediately why people come here from all over the world. At the risk of being cheesy, it looks "other-worldly", with chalky rock formations in the shapes of sand dunes, "chimneys" which are phallic-looking pillars with hard basalt rock on top, and Grand Canyon-style gorges and cliffs. The town is surrounded by such wild formations on three sides, and has tons of "cave dwellings" which are still used by locals and are also part of many pensions.
We entered the only tourist office open at this hour, Hiro Tours, and met Ali, the hard-working man who has the morning shift. He found us a room at a cheap but nice pension (same place as the Aussies) with a cave room & lots of good amenities- great towels & pillows (finally!) and a hot, powerful shower....it's the little things that matter after 3 months, folks.
Good news- we're living in a cool cave room! Bad news- Cave room= easy rock to carve= lots of dust on everything!...oh well, nothing's perfect...
We also booked a hot air balloon ride thru Ali with Kaya Balloon Tours, due to Ali's positive recommendation and the old line, "If you don't enjoy it 100%, we will give you half of your money back." How can you argue with that, eh? We slept 3 hrs until around 10.30am, and were off to lunch at Kale Restaurant, where we had traditional Turkish food- cold yogurt w/ravioli and a pot of lamb & veggie stew.
We then took the bus to Uchisar, another famous town in Cappadocia, known for it's castle on a huge hill in the center- with the standard Cappadocia cave dwellings carved into the hill. We tromped around the town a bit, first randomly stopping into the 1001 Nights Motel. No idea why they named it a motel, since there were no empty swimming pools, cockroaches, or front desk clerks named Bubba. It was a charming place with regular and cave rooms, and even a real treehouse in front where supposedly some folks spent the night recently for cheap when the place was fully booked. Next we stopped off for a juice, tea, baklava & nargileh at the House of Memories rest. & bar, which has great little cave rooms upstairs which look out on the hills & valleys. Next was the castle at the top of the hill where we saw some great views of the surrounding area and wandered thru the caves trying to imagine how one would live in there.
Still hopped up on caffeine & sugar, we started our hike/walk out of town thru Pigeon Valley, one of the 6 or 7 valleys in the Cappadocia region. Of course, it took asking about 10 people just to get to the valley (lots of warnings to not go off the path, etc, so we wanted to be very sure of our route!). Eventually we realized that "turn right next to the green thing (old watermelon stand) after the big rock" aren't such bad directions after all, since that led us directly to the start of the valley. The valley was great, except for the bug that stung/bit JJ on the foot. We thought for a while there that we would need Life Flight to come rescue her (since there ain't no way Jason is doing the fireman's carry to Goreme) but the pain subsided enough to continue on. Pigeon Valley led us directly back to Goreme, where we did some internet/photo admin on those lovely Turkish keyboards.
Dinner was at the Goreme Restaurant (creative, huh?) where we ate a Turkish flatbread thing with omelette ingredients inside, and traditional stew cooked in a clay pot which the waiter breaks in front of you before serving. Bought some Turkish blues music which we heard while having dinner. Nighty-night, off to bed.
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