On the morning of our 4th day we woke up and drove to the airport in Izmir. It was a stressful morning due to the fact we couldn't find where to take our car and the travel agent set our tickets for the wrong day. We were able to switch them and thank heavens for that (We very very nearly missed our flight) because our next destination was probably one of the most incredible places I've ever been in the world. From the airport in Kayseri it only took an hour by bus to reach our destination, Cappadocia, which means the land of beautiful horses. I'm not exagerating when I say this place belongs in a fantasy novel. There were times I thought I should be seeing hobbits, faeries, and trilblins walking around. Cappadocia is a place made up of these crazy rock spires called faerie chimneys. The landscape feels like another planet. It was formed by the volcanic mountain shown in the picture below.
We passed the volcano on our hour trip to Cappadocia, but really the city we were headed to is named Goreme. In truth, Cappadocia is the name of the region which includes multiple cities. You might remember the name Cappadocia from the Bible. The apostle Peter addresses his letters (1st Peter and 2nd Peter) to the people living here.
See what I mean!? These rock spires formed the city known as Goreme. Some of the people living here live inside of them. They just live in the carved caves! I really couldn't believe how fantastic it all was. Not only do the people live in the places, but our hotel was also one of the "faerie chimneys" and we literally stayed inside a rock for our two nights here. Priests, monks, and religious people lived in them nearly 1000 years ago.
Here is Chris and I walking through the streets of Goreme. It is a sweet little tourist city with narrow streets and cool looking houses. We saw some pretty interesting and awesome cars while we were there. It is not surprising that many people like to visit this incredible place. I am surprised though that I had no idea such an amazing place actually exists in this world. I feel cheated that I didn't know about it until now. Nothing could have pleased me more.
Here is an interesting vehicle. If the landscape is different so should the Volkswagons. This is a VW bus combined with a VW beatle.
This is a person's house. We passed this house while walking to the open air museum. Inside the rock spires, or faerie chimneys, it is very cool, so you don't have to worry about air conditioning in the summer.
Here are some of the many horses that live here. There are many faerie chimneys that have dwellings carved into them by Christians who lived here nearly a thousand years ago, but many of them are not inhabited today.
This is the El Nazar church. It is not in use today, but it is frequented by the many tourists who visit Cappadocia. You only have to pay a few Turkish Lira to go inside.
Here is some of the Christian art inside the church, perhaps 800-900 years old. Obviously you can see it is pretty faded, but still an awesome sight to see! In the open air museum the Christian art in these ancient churches was practically brand new but we couldn't take pictures because the flashes of ther cameras would eventually destroy the drawings. They will have to be something you see when you go there. So look forward to it. On the walls were depictions of many incidents in both the Old and New Testaments.
Me and one of the workers at the El Nazar rock church.
Not far from El Nazar is the famous open air museum. This place was a religious community with many churches like the one you saw dating back to 11th-12th century (if I remember correctly). The place above was called the nunnery for the nuns who lived in the area.
Above is a site of the beautiful open air museum.
Me inside one of the churches at the open air museum. These places were also used to bury the dead. We saw multiple tomb areas while we were here.
This is the place where the Christians would eat their meals. I literally took hundreds of pictures just in Cappadocia. I only chose a few because I'm trying not to flood these posts with pics.
Above is the city of Uchisar. When we finished at the open air museum we took a taxi from Goreme to Pigeon Valley (or as the turks say Pigeon Wallay) where we got this view of Uchisar. It is only 6 kilometers away from Goreme so we decided to walk back through Pigeon Valley to Goreme, but first we headed to the very top of the mountain in Uchisar that you see above. It was the site of an old castle. You should click on the picture of Uchisar to get a better view of it. It reminded me of that city in the Return of the King.
After a kilometer walk we reached the very top of Uchisar. This is me standing on the top overlooking the city. Just one more step forward and it would have been a long fall. I was a tiny bit nervous standing so close to the edge because it was pretty windy up there.
A panoramic of the area from the top of Uchisar's fortress area.
Now for a 5 kilometer walk through the valley back to Goreme. This place is so beautiful it reminds me of Moab Utah except that its green and the weather is perfect. You can see the top of Uchisar behind me. Our hike back to Goreme was pretty cool. I could hike these areas for months and not get tired of it.
Another panoramic from the valley looking up at Uchisar and beyond. We passed some pretty crazy old rock houses on the way back. Chris literally started laughing because of how unreal this place was. We thought we found Bilbo Baggin's home while we were there.
We walked down this valley. We got kind of lost and found ourself walking up some pretty precarious areas. But we lived, so that was nice.
More of the valley further in.
This was my cave room in Goreme. Chris's room was a little smaller off to the side. It was great, and again, no need for an AC.
Our dinner that night. You can see my food bubbling out of a ceramic pot. They literally enclose the food in a ceramic pot and then have to break it open in front of you before you can eat it. It was very hot and very good. I had the lamb. One thing I liked about Turkey is that they weren't flooded with American fast food. I only saw one Burger King and one McDonalds and that was only in Istanbul a few days later. I ate a lot of Turkish food while I was there and it was very good.
This is a better view of Goreme from a nice viewpoint.
Our second day we first took a hotair balloon ride, but I'm saving that for my next post because it deserves its own post. After the balloon ride we took a tour to many places, the first being the Selime Cathedral, and old rock cut church, and I think it is the biggest. Its about an hour away from Goreme. We did quite a bit of hiking and walking up mountains like this that day.
Inside the Selime cathedral but this is only a small part of it. It used to be painted like the others as well.
This is a sign for the Derinkuyu underground city. Our guide told us that Christians of the 7th or 8th century built these underground cities in order to hide from the invading Muslim armies who were expanding their territory.
This is an airshaft so the people could get air so far underground.
A stair case going down and down and down. These tunnels and staircases go down as far as 80 meters. It was quite the work out going so far down in these tiny narrow tunnels. My heart was beating like crazy. They say people with claustrophobia or heart problems should not go down.
As you can see from the pic above the tunnels of these underground cities were very small. I had to kneel and walk at the same time. I was working out muscles that haven't seen activity in forever!
Chris walking around the tunnel.
I thoguht the stairs would never end, but it was a cool experience.
The above picture are some of the homes of Christians who would hide here. They even brought animals down to live with them. It must have been a crazy and scary time to live if they would go to such lengths to hide. Can you imagine carving tunnels 80 meters down through solid rock?
Next we went to the Ihlara Valley. This place is a beautiful canyon with a river running through it. Many Christians built there rock dwellings and churches here as well.
A panoramic of the Ihlara Valley.
Here is our guide. We walked down to the bottom of the valley and then another few kilometers...3 I think. At the end they had a nice restaurant where we ate lunch.
That night we went to Turkish night at a really nice restaurant. Our hotel set it up for us. Turkish night is a nice dinner while watching some traditional dances, the above dance being one of the most popular. These guys are called whirling dervishes. They spin around and around. This dance is related to the old Muslim mystic (called Sufi Muslims) Rumi who lived in Turkey during the 1200s. He is a famous poet who had a big influence on Islamic mysticism. Its all about love. I really enjoyed Turkey because of all the Muslim and Christian history this place has....not to mention Greek, Roman, and Hittite as well.
We also saw other cool Turkish dances while we were there eating. Some of them were pretty funny, like a guy trying to impress a girl and win her over for marriage.
I didn't realize this would happen but they suddenly got everyone in the restaurant involved in the dancing which somehow turned into a conga line that ended up outside with everyone dancing around a fire. If the BYUJC students were there they would have torn the place up.
Chris joins the dancing. After this we watched a few more dances. One in which guys put the tips of knives in their mouths and threw them at wooden boards, and another with a belly dancer, heheheh.
Chris and I standing in front of Uchisar. This was a very memorable time for me. I'll post more about the balloon ride and Istanbul in a few days.
And finally, we finished. This is our pilot preparing our balloon to be put away. He actually managed to land our balloon right on the trailer! It was an awesome trip. We were in the air for an hour and five minutes.
