A fantastic week-end of fairy chimneys and fabulous fun

June 1 2011

Ron and I had our last fling and went to Cappadocia in central Turkey over the Memorial Day weekend. We left at 4:45 on Saturday morning. We had gone to bed at 10:30 but got up at 1:00 to read as neither of us could sleep. We stayed up and got out of bed at 2:30 to be ready for Gia (our driver) at 3:00. We arrived in Goreme where we were staying around 11:00 Saturday morning. It was an easy trip except for the lack of sleep. We checked into a charming hotel owned by a father and son team. They love flowers and had done a great job of planting all kinds of flowers in pots on the various patios and terraces. It was just lovely. We were right in town making it quite convenient. After unpacking, Serder gave us the rundown on what to do while there and made arrangements for a tour of the region the next day. We went to a nearby café and had a light lunch and walked around the small town. We went back to the hotel and rested for a couple of hours then got up and walked to the open air museum. This region had been the heart of the Hittite Empire and later a vast Roman province mentioned in the Bible.

About ten million years ago three volcanoes erupted and left a thick layer of hot volcanic ash over the region which hardened into a soft, porous stone called tuff. Over eons wind, water, and sand erosion wore away portions of the tuff, carving out elaborate, unearthly shapes. Boulders of hard stones, caught in the tuff and then exposed by erosion protected it from further erosion from below. The result is a column or cone of tuff with a boulder perched on top called a ‘fairy chimney’. Entire valleys are filled with these formations, many of them amusingly phallic in appearance. The tuff was easily worked with primitive tools and the inhabitants quickly learned how simple it was to carve out sturdy dwellings: a cave could be excavated very quickly and if the family expanded, more carving could produce more space.

When Christianity arrived here its adherents found that cave churches could also be easily carved and decorated. Large communities thrived here and the quantity of rock hewn churches they left are unparalleled. When Arab armies swept across this region in the 7th century, the Christians retreated to vast underground settlements that the Hittites may have excavated.

Many of the caves and villages were inhabited by descendants of these early settlers right up until 1923 when the Ottoman Empire finally culminated in an exchange of populations between Greece and Turkey. (from Lonely Planet)

In the open air museum we walked and crawled around many of these structures: churches, homes, storage rooms. It was fascinating. There were busloads of tourists with us as well, so sometimes we had to wait to get inside a room. Given how fatigued we were I was surprised we lasted for the 90 minutes we were there. We had walked a couple of miles to get there and on the way we thought we were at the museum and it turned out we weren’t so we spent about 25 minutes wandering around another interesting place filled with fascinating rock structures. Because we couldn’t find a ticket office and knew there was a charge for the museum we knew we had made a mistake even though there were busloads of tourist here as well.

That night we walked to a restaurant and on the way stopped in a shop that had tribal treasures. We spied a fabulous textile that had been decorated for the interior of a nomad’s tent. In addition to lots tassels there was a lot of hand needle work, and shells and buttons sewn into the banner. The young man who was minding the store said today was the first day the store opened. We asked him how much for this textile that was about 10 -12 feet long. He said $100 and we about fell over. So we bought it. We proceeded to the restaurant and had our dinner. At one point the owner stopped by our table and said ‘you bought the best thing’. It turned out he had owned a carpet shop for years and knew exactly what this piece was. He was able to give us much more information than the sales clerk in the store. The piece was from the SE of Turkey on the border with Iran and was about 40-50 years old. It would have been made by a woman as part of her dowry. We were thrilled to learn more about the piece and to be complimented by the man who knew the trade. The piece had been marked $250 so who knows why it was sold for $100.

The next day we were picked up at the hotel at 9:00, taken to the tour company office and then got on a small bus with 11 others and spent the entire day touring the region. We stopped at a viewpoint overlooking a valley that had many of the tuff houses, then headed for an underground city. This is one of the cities where Christians lived to avoid persecution. Apparently 6,000 people could live underground here for up to six months. It was incredible. The structure was very sophisticated with air vents and this particular ‘city’ had been excavated down to eight levels although there were 12 levels originally (the lowest four have not been opened up for fear of causing structural problems for the floors above). There were areas for making wine, cooking, storage, church services, schools, etc. At times we had to bend over almost double to squeeze through the passage ways. Some of the tunnels were quite long. Just when I thought I could not stay bent over any longer the tunnel would open up and I could stand up. Again there were lots of tourists but it was manageable. For sanitation the inhabitants used pottery ‘slop jars’ for toilets. Because of the small space, there were no private rooms for families as such. It was all shared space, shared meals, etc. They even had stone doors that could be closed off to prevent the raiders from entering.

Next we walked through the Ihlara Valley. This was a 2 mile walk along a stream. There were churches carved into the rock with frescoes, as well as cliff dwellings. We ate lunch in a restaurant overlooking the river. As we drove through the region there was a lot of agriculture. Here they grow wheat, barley and potatoes. The land is quite fertile due to the mineral rich volcanic soil. We also saw grapes grown here although we didn’t try the wine. We often spied women working in the fields. They wear very modest dress here: long sleeved blouses, long skirts or pantaloons to the ankles and head scarves. Very warm dress for this climate at this time of year.

Next we visited the Selime monastery. This was a very steep walk, and scramble over another large structure that included a huge kitchen with a soaring chimney, a church with a gallery all around it and all sorts of evidence of the troglodyte lifestyle. It was quite sophisticated in the design and size. It also was quite scary to be so high up with no real protection from falling: no handrails etc. We finished the tour with the obligatory trip to the onyx factory/store, a large jewelry store mostly. We arrived back at our hotel at 6:00 physically exhausted.

Near our hotel was a minaret and five times a day in the Muslim world there is the call to prayer. In the good old days a man would climb to the top of the minaret and chant the call to prayers. Not so today. Today there are loud speakers. In our case the loud speakers were of poor quality and the volume was ear piercing. So every morning we were rudely awakened at 4:30 with this distorted screech. OY!

On our last day we decided to go at a slower pace. We had already seen quite a lot. We walked to the ‘otogar’ (bus station) and caught a local bus to a town nearby. We wanted to see the Valley of the Fairy Chimneys. We asked the driver to let us off at the road to the valley which was a 2 kilometer walk to get there. Unfortunately he let us off at a different place unbeknownst to us. We walked up this road and when we got to the end of a  town we asked someone where the valley was. The man offered to give us a tour and show us his town. Again we scampered over rocks and went to the large church of St John the Baptist carved from rock in the 12th century. It still had some of the frescoes barely visible. He then showed us the valley and we realized we were in the wrong place, the neighboring town of Cavusin. Our new friend Mehmet took us to the f airy chimney valley and Ron got a few photos. 

Then he took us to the next town of Avanos, famous for its pottery. We were toured around a ceramics factory by a handsome young Turkish man. We bought a plate, highly decorated with the tree of life motif and the family signature design. Ca ching! We caught a bus back to town and ate lunch and walked around town, poking around shops. Then we went to our favorite coffee shop and had a ‘pancake’ which is actually very thin bread, think crepe, that had mashed bananas and chocolate sauce and heated on a stove and drizzled with more chocolate sauce. YUM! We meandered back to the hotel and sat on the terrace and read until time to catch our shuttle to the airport. We arrived in TBS around 3:00 and were in bed by 4:00a.m. Unfortunately we couldn’t get to sleep so got up and took turns bathing. That did the trick and we slumbered until 8:45. Short night. On Tuesday Ron headed out to the embassy for his regular meeting there with the ambo and others. I met with Lala our seamstress to see if she could make repairs on our old textile we had just bought and she loved it. She will have it back to us before the packers arrive. YEAH Lala!

We now have two weeks before time to leave. We will be busy with a farewell to TBS party on Saturday and getting ready for packers who will be here on Wednesday. There still items to sale and give away but we are doing pretty well so far.