Journey to the center of the earth

Or rather, the center of Turkey and yes, that IS Constantinople
June 10th - 13th, 2009

From Istanbul, Libby and I took an overnight bus to Central Turkey. As you might imagine, overnight buses are not chock-full of amenities, but we reached the conclusion that it could have been worse, despite the lack of sleep. We had booked this leg of our trip through a travel agency in Istanbul, thus we had a tour guide for the day named Alli when we arrived in Cappadocia, and we turned out to be his only clients for the day; thus, a private tour.

Cappadocia is an area unlike anything else in the world; volcanic eruptions some 40 million years ago left the landscape of the region littered with thousands of rock formations which have been dubbed "fairy chimneys". I'll let the photo speak for itself:

Panoramic view of C-docia.

Fairy Chimney + Flowers = Fabulous.

A cluster of shroom-ish fairy chimneys.

The rock formations were multi-purpose: they lent themselves as cave homes and people lived in these all the way up to the 1960s; the caves also housed lots and lots of churches, of which we were able to see some beautiful paintings on the walls done over the past centuries; finally, the caves were also home to our feathered friends the messenger pigeons and you can still see the holes for the pigeon houses in many caves.

Pigeons in their house.

Alli drove us around the area and we also went to a large handmade pottery studio where I realized that, alas, pottery is not my calling, as you can perhaps discern here; I was told not to shift career tracks.

You want me to smoosh what?!?!

Later in the day, we visited Goreme which is a large open air museum featuring several cave churches. I met this fine gentleman there:

Who knew I would meet my fro-soulmate at Goreme?

However, it was scorching hot and Lib and I were dragging from bus, church, cave, and heat fatigue. Alli called us out on it when he pointed to a painting and said to me "Who did I say that was?" And I answered "Jesus". I mean, we were seeing like 80 churches, it had to be a good hunch.
Nope, Wrong Answer. Constantinople was the man. At that point, Jesus seemed close enough, and we just wanted to learn how to say "Best Meatball of my Life." Needless to say, after we asked him how to say that in Turkish, he brought us back to the hotel so we could nap.

Goreme!

Somehow, I had never heard of this region previously; however Budget Travel magazine had, as that night Alli took us to a neighboring village to a restaurant called "Old Greek House" (that's right, Old Greek House in Turkey; there is much Greek influence here) which was featured in BT magazine earlier this year.

After another great meal with excellent wine and lots more kofte, we got in Alli's car once again and traveled just out of the town to see a performance of the Whirling Dervishes at a nearby castle. The Whirling Dervishes perform traditional Turkish dance featuring all male dancers. Lib really enjoyed it, but after running around all day, I must admit to napping for a bit mid-dervish.

The next day, we ventured out early as we had something on the itinerary I was really looking forward to, as it was a first-time experience for me: a hot air balloon ride over the Cappadocia area. The pictures, again, can speak for themselves:

Ballooning it up, up, WAYYYY UP in Cappdocia

Notice I am extremely excited even afterwards when presented with my certificate of flight.

The best part of this photo is the dude on the left fixing his hair.

We continued another full day by seeing some more rock formations with a different guide, and getting accosted by a salesman that wrapped our head's in a turban like concoction (we did not buy one).

I like to accesorize, note the matching green travel shirt.

From there, we trekked through the Red Valley, taking in pigeon holes in the caves, more churches, and then we stumbled upon a man selling tea seemingly in the middle of nowhere, concluding that he has The Best Job in the World.


Our hike was cut short because we needed to meet another girl who was to join us in the afternoon, and so we headed off to have more kofte and meet her, and then drove to another small town which has an underground city which I think was called Meskendir. Despite my claustrophobic tendencies I handled the underground city OK, but preferred the outdoor, open-air activities. Before our tour day ended we caught a panoramic view of the valley and the Ortahisar Castle, and sampled some organic Turkish Viagra (almonds, corn nuts, you know, the usual).

Quite the pad

This man was only selling NATUREL Viagra.

After two packed days in Cappadocia we again headed off to catch another overnight bus the same night, this time to Pammakale. This overnight bus was a little more brutal, and despite my best efforts some of my B.A. was becoming exposed. However, later that day it had passed.

Pammakale is in Central Anatolia, known as the land of the rising sun. Ancient Greeks first settled here for about 200 years until an earthquake destroyed the city, then Romans came and made it a center for health and trade. There was a huge Roman amphitheatre there as well as natural hot springs we were able to bathe in (which was surprisingly pleasant even though it was hot out; no shower + an overnight bus = hot springs are awesome).

Roman Amphitheater. Drew quite the crowds back in the day.

The main draw to Pammukale though is to walk across this large area of limestone which is quite stark in comparison to the rest of the landscape and quite beautiful, though the barefoot walk is not like walking on shag carpet by any stretch of the imagination.

The barefoot journey in Pammakale.

This time our tour group was about 10 people, with a mix of Australians, Indonesians and a few others. We again had too much for lunch (on these tours most of the lunches were in large mess hall places with a generous buffet) and were again exhausted by the time our approximately 21 year old tour guide dropped us back at the hotel. Before another bus ride (this time an evening ride, not an overnighter) I was able to take a dip in the pool where we were storing our bags, which is always a pleasure. By the time we reached Kusadasi (a western Turkish city) that night, I was exhausted but looking forward to more sights the next day.

Stay tuned for a summary of a trip to the Virgin Mary's house and a Turkish Bath...