On Friday, we flew from Istanbul to Cappadocia for the day. We left at 5:00 a.m. and arrived back at our hotel at 9:00 p.m. It was a long day but absolutely fascinating. We were picked up at our hotel with a driver and “guide” who brought us into the Istanbul airport to get our boarding passes. The guide was then leaving after telling us to come back on the flight around 7 pm. We insisted on getting a printed schedule but finally ended up with only evening boarding passes. At the time, it seemed to us to take a long time to get the return boarding passes at the counter (more to come).
Cappadocia is an region comprised of four major areas. One is a large plain of essentially flat land. Over the years (up to 5,000 years ago), the inhabitants dug underground caves in the soft stone below their homes in order to hide when their enemies arrived. These caves were probably also more comfortable in the hot summer months. As they randomly connected with neighbors, they became a massive underground town with up to 8 levels of carved rooms and tunnels. The area now has one of the world’s most extensive collection of underground cities and villages. Prior to visiting these underground “Wonders”, our guide asked if any of the four of us were claustrophobic. Lesley was timid to admit to her intense claustrophobia and thought she could brave it since she had no problem visiting the Timpanogos Caves a few years ago. Within 5 minutes of entering the underground city with its low narrow sloping passages, Lesley had a claustrophobic attack and pushed her way back out to the entranceway where a crowd of tourists had just entered and did not want her to exit from the entrance. These caves had living, storage and wine-making rooms as well as deep wells to the water table. They are quite fascinating.
Another area of Cappadocia has deep valleys and soaring rock formations. It is a geographical oddity of lunarscape panoramas that are spectacular and truly have to be seen in person. Pictures do not do this “fairyland” justice. These cones were created by volcanic eruptions and erosion which sheared away top layers of soil and left these odd-looking cylinder cones. As the stone is soft, these cones were perfect for cave homes (with limited access to keep their enemies out) as well as many pigeon “farms” that were carved into the stone. The whimsical fairytale cones that are dotted throughout the area were only vacated in the 1960’s due to the rock crumbling! The government relocated all the villagers down the hill; thus the entire area currently has very few inhabitants. Some of these fairy chimneys have even been converted into boutique hotels and there are loads of touristy nicknack shops at each “viewing” area. Interestingly, when these cones were vacated in the 1960’s, they were sold “for a song” to Turkish people from other parts of the country. Once the area was declared a UNESCO site, our guide told us that these vacant cones sold for millions and are still considered today an excellent investment. We didn’t quite understand how a UNESCO site could still sell properties within the site; but we did see “For Sale” signs on a few crumbling cones.
After lunch, we visited an interesting pottery shop in a very large cave owned by a family which dated back 250 years. The pottery making demonstrations were interesting but the salesperson was irritated that after the 20 minute tour and demonstration, we did not purchase the $3,500 bowl that Lesley inquired about. We then got back in the van, ready to head back to the airport. We assumed that we would be flying back out of the same airport as we arrived this morning. As the van door was about the close, our guide wanted to confirm the airport (we hadn’t known that there were 2 airports in the area) and David pulled out the boarding pass for him. We were flying out of a different airport 1 1/2 hrs. away! Yikes! We made our plane but were totally annoyed at the tour agency for not mentioning this “small detail” to us.
CLICK ON EACH PICTURE TO ENLARGE – SOME ARE VERY DISTANT
