Cappadocia

Ballon over the Museum

Weird, could be one description of Cappadocia, strange is too light a word, very interesting is also a good one.  We were dumped by the bus in the central square of Göreme at 5am, dark and heavens above, cold, well cool compared to what be had been used to.  The only movement in the town were two or three stray dogs hanging about for want of anything else to do, almost as if they were waiting for the bus themselves.  It was too early to go to the pansion to get rid of our bags, so it was dig deep and find some warm clothes and wait.  My nose led me to a café/bakery at 6am so we had çay and some strange pastry.  As it got light the hot air balloons started to rise up from behind the houses, maybe 20 or more big balloons, and when the flames were going it lit up the inside of the balloon.

Church Art

Megan in White Valley

First we tried the open air museum, it was so crowded we left as you couldn’t get to see anything, the tours were taking up all the space and when you tried to get past them the guides objected, so we left and walked around the valleys ourselves.  This was much more interesting as we found examples of small churches and habitation in the rocks, which made the discovery more personal.  In fact you can’t miss them, all around dwellings have been carved into the ‘fairy chimneys’ as they call them.  All but a very few abandoned as they are deemed unsafe by the authorities.

1st Tea Man

Hassan

There are some enterprising tea houses in the most unusual places, the first we got passed as he was occupied by three Spanish cyclists, however, we were caught on the way back to share a cup of çay (free we thought) with two American ladies.  We had an interesting conversation with them and then decided to buy some of his dried fruit as a ‘thank you’ half a kilo of mixed 10TL, plus 2TL for the tea!  We were hooked and played like two flounders.  The second at the top of a long valley walk, he had loads of ‘clients’, ‘How much’ we asked, 1TL was the answer, ok we said.  Hassan the tea man was fabo, 3 of languages we heard whilst there.  He has a pet turtle living up a tree, sshh he said to Meg he is asleep, bet it’s a tortoise Megan said, turtles live in water, so up the short ladder she climbs and there in a nook is a stone tortoise, one more snagged!

No Giggling!