capping it off in cappadocia

so the morning after our day in konya we found ourselves back at the bus station bright and early. i tried to find something to eat for breakfast (more pastries) while courtney was left to deal with a very insistent bus station employee. eventually we made it onto the bus where we had a lovely ride, chatting listening to music and sharing my favorite new snack of moong dal (fried yellow lentils - salty, not spicy) and m&ms. delicious (and gluten-free, if anyone's interested), you should try it.

around lunch time we found ourselves in cappadocia. well, almost. while we were in the region of cappadocia, our bus dropped us off at the bus station outside of the town of göreme, our destination. we weren't bombarded at the station by hoteliers and tour guides, but we did get a shakedown from someone inside the 'information booth' inside. he conveniently neglected to tell us that the bus to town leaves every half hour until minutes after it had left. but if we sign up for his tour, they'll drive us right to town. convenient. we ended up waiting for the shuttle bus, after getting a map of where we had to walk to find the other bus to get to göreme. not confusing at all. we got on the bus and hopped off at a crossroads that seemed like where we needed to be. we walked on for a while, inquired after the bus stop, got further directions, turned and kept walking. we walked quite a ways, and even had to stop for a little snack. eventually i went into a hotel and asked where we were on the map. thank goodness for hotels, where they always speak english and always give directions. re-oriented, we walked on, more confident this time. we walked and walked and walked until we came to what looked like it was out of town, turned left where we thought we were supposed to, and found ourselves on a deserted residential street. thoroughly discouraged and at this point getting cranky, we asked someone at a nearby shipping store for help. courtney managed to find someone who seemed to speak some german who offered to give us a ride to where we needed to be. unable to fathom walking any farther with our bags, we decided to overlook the fact that he seemed to be shipping rocks from the trunk of his car. (...) so we hopped in and soon found ourselves at a stretch of small restaurants and convenience stores. it didn't look terribly promising, until we spied the other foreigners with backpacks. hallelujah! we waited for the shuttle bus and finally - finally - arrived in göreme.

once we arrived it was a matter of finding a hotel. we didn't want to get taken advantage of because we were tired and hungry so we resolved to find a reasonable hotel. of course it was the only city where we were both paying for lodging, so we could afford to spend a little. we figured staying in a cave hotel would be worth it. again, we were not at all harassed by hopeful hoteliers when we disembarked our shuttle bus (silly guide books). instead we made our way into the small tourist office which was empty except for an employee playing a game on facebook and a wall filled with hotel posters. we made a careful study of them, asking the guide to tell us which ones were the least expensive and still in caves. we eventually settled on one that seemed to fit the bill. the gentleman called the hotel for us, booked our room, and had them send for a van. talk about service!

our cave dwelling

we were escorted up the small hills and winding streets of göreme, and dropped right at our hotel. we dumped our stuff and took a few minutes to revel in the awesome-ness of our cave-room, complete with craggy walls and turkish carpets. we were pretty excited (someone may or may not have jumped on the bed a little; i won't say who). after relaxing and relishing our new digs we made our way down the hill towards the 'canal' (a laughable little concrete trench with maybe a trickle of water - not even worthy of a photo) and our mid-afternoon lunch. i opted for lahmacun, a crispy flatbread with meat and tomatoes, sometimes called turkish pizza, and courtney, mercifully, had little trouble finding some gluten-free options, for once (although they were, once again, inexplicably more expensive for less food. sigh.) we had a nice meal, right by the canal, and noted that there seemed to be very few tourists around. odd, we thought, for june. ah well, more for us to enjoy.

could you top us off?

after our lunch we meandered around the small town, poking into a few shops, some piled high with carpets, others filled with tiles and all sorts of souvenirs (some of which were definitely from india, i noted). we decided to take it easy for the rest of the afternoon and headed back to enjoy our hotel. we spent a little while catching up on computer things (oh, hello wifi!) and such, while i played some music from my turkish playlist in the background to really set the scene (turns out one of my turkish CDs is even called 'cappadocia'. how's that for appropriate!). when we had finished up we ventured upstairs to enjoy the view of dusk settling over the valley. we ordered a few glasses of local wine and sat out on the terrace, writing postcards (one of our favorite pastimes) as the blues in the sky deepened and the lights came on, illuminating the fairy chimneys (what they call the unusual rock formations; i'm not just being whimsical). so yes, we were pretty content.

we had a few feline visitors

before we realized it, it was past 9 and our hotel's kitchen had closed for the night. i guess that late lunch had filled us up. no matter, we made our way down the hill to a local restaurant - very lively and warm inside, but we thought we'd see if we could manage to get something to go. the family running the restaurant was super accommodating and whipped us up some phyllo dough/feta cigars and hummus to take back to our inviting room. we enjoyed our impromptu room service and followed it up with some tv (well, internet tv) and a reserve supply of milka chocolate. and before you judge us for spending the night in our hotel room, let me remind you that it was a cave room. so, yeah.

the eyes have it

the next morning we were up early for a buffet breakfast and off early on our day of hikes. we bypassed all the buses going into the valleys and decided to walk the mile or so to the open air museum. on the way we discovered this really great tree full of evil eyes outside a pottery studio. there was also a tree/cart full of pottery and shards, but it wasn't quite as picturesque. also along our route were horses and lovely views of the rocks in the distance. all those suckers speeding by in the buses missed out.

forbidden photo

eventually we arrived at the museum and switched the backpack on our way in (we resolved to take turns carrying our stuff). even though it was early, the sun was out and we were already feeling the heat. luckily the cave dwellings were nice and cool. the museum itself is composed of various churches, monasteries and nunneries that date back to the 11th and 12th centuries. in some of the chapels the paint on the walls was quite intact; in some entire scenes were visible. even more impressive was the church across the road. it was covered with the admission to the museum, but could easily have been missed since it was outside the entrance. entire surfaces were covered with paint, and not just faded sepia but deep blues and golds. i even managed to sneak a photo (to be fair, someone else was taking photos openly. turns out she was a journalist or something.) anyway, onward and upward. uphill, that is.

valley of the rocks

back on the path we had views of the fairy chimneys (some less chimney-like, more like conical heads or very pointy white sand dunes), the hills beyond and some little flowers along the way. en route to our hiking trail we happened upon a campsite with a small convenience store where we picked up some pistachios and dried fruits. we also got confirmation that we were headed the right way. not too many signs on this road. eventually we made it to the trail head and down into the valley. the trail at first was downhill and though it wasn't horribly steep, it was rather difficult to get down those dusty slopes without slipping. courtney decided to use the lack of friction to her advantage and scooted her way down. it seemed to work pretty well (as well as being entertaining for me). once we were more horizontal things got easier. we were down in the bottom of this small valley, looking up at the tall trees and rock formations. in the sides of some of the rocks we could see openings that had been cut out. pretty neat. we pressed on, passing very few fellow hikers and only one little cafe, perched beside a little cave. a very pleasant walk. once we had made it to a clearing we stopped near a tree for our picnic lunch - comprised of some provisions saved from breakfast, a bit of cheese and nuts from the grocery store and the dried fruits and nuts. it was a nice little meal. it was a tad windy, but still sunny and pleasant.

anybody home?

we continued on, now surrounded more by open fields and hills in the distance. we walked quite a ways, passed a picturesque cemetery - carved tombstones in the midst of little purple flowers - and eventually came to a small town that had expensive postcards and a few pottery shops, as well as a series of dwellings carved into the top of a hill. we didn't venture up; we were already pretty tired. instead we continued on, onto more wide open fields. we generally had the path to ourselves - except when we were passed by a group of obnoxious teenagers on ATVs - laughing as they drove too close and dirt clouded up from under their wheels. charming. we weren't certain that we were on the right road but figured it had to lead back to the town and, sure enough, after a few minutes we could see the familiar minarets.

lingering light on the rocks

we made our way back to the hotel and had a much-deserved rest. and as a reward for our full day of hiking (and frugal lunch!) we decided to treat ourselves to a nice dinner at the town's best restaurant, according to our guide book. we wandered around for a while (you kind of have to rely on signs posted for hotels and restaurants) but eventually found it. we came in just in time - even though there were seats reserved, we managed to get one of the last open tables. we placed our order with high expectations. the sun began to set so we excused ourselves for a few pictures. we managed to snap a few of the setting sunlight on the rosy rocks just before the raindrops started to fall. then back inside for our much-anticipated meal. everything was.. well just strange. all the food seemed like it was courtesy of chef boyardee, including the tomato soup with tiny meatballs. we couldn't help but giggle - which only made matters worse since everyone else in that (very full, remember) restaurant was inexplicably quiet. we picked at our food and then left, giving up our table for hopefully more appreciative patrons. back to the hotel to supplement our meal with more of our chocolate reserves.

balloon's eye view

our last day we thought we'd get up early to at least watch some of the hot air balloons, even if we couldn't go for a ride ourselves. (our lead for getting a good deal fell through.) at first, nothing. then all of a sudden we saw massive balloons rising up out of the rocks. i'm sure their view from up there was pretty great, but ours wasn't half bad either. we watched until the sun came over the distant mountains then made it back to our room to start the day.

turkish toilets?

from here it was another bus ride to derinkuyu, one of the underground cities. there are several in central turkey and they really are cities - this one once housed more than 20,000 people. first built (and inhabited) in the 7th century BC, the spaces were later occupied by refugee communities. the underground lairs included churches, stables, wine cellars. of course now it's hard to tell one space from another, but it's still fun to crawl through little tunnels and duck into niches. we had a ball exploring and taking one or two requisite goofy photos.

please excuse my selfie

on our way our we stopped at some of the commercial stalls that invariably pop up around touristy locales. we comparison shopped and eventually decided on a few items - picked a set of lovely turquoise ceramic bowls, each with a slightly different design. these items, supplemented by some earrings and other small items we picked up back in göreme's shops, rounded out our shopping. we had some time remaining before our evening bus so we had a long leisurely afternoon of lunch followed by tea and hookah while writing postcards. pretty perfect.

we took a walk as the sun was just beginning to go down and got our last looks at cappadocia. then it was onto the bus for our final ride - back to istanbul!