Cappadocia

I certainly don’t recommend a 4.30am wakeup call for anyone! The flight was quite quick though, and although everyone was very tired, we had a full day of sightseeing to do. We girded our loins with caffeine and hit the road with our fabulous Rock Valley guide Öman and wonderful driver Victor.

First up was Derinkuyu Underground City, a series of manmade interconnected tunnels where people hid in various wars. We went seven storeys down, and our legs and backs were soon aching from crouching down to walk up the narrow and low, steep stairways. There are some great sights!

The next stop was a brief photo opportunity at a lake situated in a dormant volcano crater. It was so beautiful that we all craved going for a swim, but unfortunately there wasn’t enough time, as we had to move onto the next stop, the Ilhara Valley.

This is a huge rift valley created by earthquakes, causing sheer rock walls where many people lived in caves. It’s a beautiful valley, and after about 4km of meandering along the length of the river, we stopped for lunch. Unlike last time when we were seated at a table on a jetty in the river, this time we were on the banks. The food was good, but the local bees had a taste for baked trout, and were harassing us as soon as the food came out! The local kitty was also in evidence, of course.

We also visited the Agzikarahan Caravanserail which I had seen last time as well. They are doing restoration work here so it is starting to look a lot like it would have a thousand years ago. The “winter accommodation” in huge halls, look more like a huge cathedral than somewhere livestock and people slept!

Finally we reached our hotel, the beautiful Kelebek. We had a quick snack of chips, cheese and salad on the terrace before hitting the hotel’s hammam for some much-needed relaxation. We all chose an indulgent package of an oil massage, a scrub and soap massage, and a face mask.

The oil massage was as you’d expect, but the scrub and soap massage was the real treat. We were laid on the warm marble slab, doused all over with bowls of warm water, then scrub-a-dubbed with a scratchy cloth. Then we were rinsed, with more bowls of water (the whole place is awash by this point of course) and then the soap massage happens. Pillowcases of soap suds are gently floated onto your body, and then the attendant does another proper massage of your muscles, using the soap instead of oil/moisturiser etc. Sooooooo good. Then you have more water thrown over you to rinse, and for the final excruciating wake-up call, you’re doused with cold water. So we don’t need to do the ice bucket challenge now… 🙂

After a much better sleep, we were all raring to go for our second day of touring around Cappadocia. We started with a walk around an open air museum which consisted of a village entirely made up of caves carved into the walls of the rock face. After yesterday’s exploits our legs were all complaining about more stairs to climb!

We also visited a few areas where the fairy chimneys were at their most interesting, with the mushroom or “smurf”-shaped ones, and the famous Camel Rock.

 

Next stop was a carpet-making co-operative. The government is trying to stop the steady stream of country Turkish people moving to the city, so they help people set up co-operatives like this which are subsidised to allow better conditions and more education for workers to enable them to stay in their hometowns.

 

The carpets were amazingly beautiful, and almost all of us made a purchase or two. I picked up a gorgeous “Thousand and One Nights” design wall-hanging carpet, as I’d been eyeing off this design last time I was here as well. I think I got a good price in the end – a little over half the “listed” price.

We also visited a pottery workshop which has been run by the same family for four generations. They had some beautiful items, and again, a lot of us made some expensive purchases! The most common design we almost all picked up was the Hittite-design of wine decanter, with a circular bottle, made to be worn over the arm when serving. Mine was a gorgeous turquoise blue and green colour, in a smaller size than the original arm-size.

An old monastery made from caves carved into the rock face, with thousand-year-old frescoes and paintings inside was our last sight-seeing stop for the day. It was pretty hot, so we were glad we waited for this one until the relative cool of the late afternoon.

This evening was the highlight of the Cappadocia section – the Turkish show! We bussed out to Uranos, the six-sided dinner theatre carved into a cave, to eat, drink, and watch folkloric and oriental dance. We were the last to leave (of course) as we stayed and cut up on the dance floor.