Rocking our way through Turkey

Yeah, lame title I know but I cannot really think of a better one at the moment so it will have to do. Thank goodness we are back in the digital world. The new netbook that Chris purchased for the trip did the dishonourable thing and stopped working last week. After days trying to revive it and wasting hours on the phone to the samsung “helpdesk” he decided to cut his loses and purchase another. Hopefully this one will do the job and the samsung will come back to life in New Zealand sometime.

Since our last blog we left the coast in a sweltering 40 degree heat (yes, 40 degrees!) and headed inland where we had been warned that it was even hotter.

Much to our relief, we stumbled off our 12 hour overnight bus at 4:30am and found ourselves in 14 degrees. We stood there with our big backpacks, blinking in the darkness for a while and explained to the tout that we had just been on on a 12 hour bus ride and were feeling a bit too tired for the 5:30am balloon flight. When he realised he had no chance of convincing us he pointed out

the direction of our guesthouse so we wandered off through the dark, feeling quite grateful for the full moon!

Okay, it’s embarrasing to admit but will state it anyway.

I enjoy looking at rock formations.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m certainly not hanging out at the Natural History Museum or slicing pics out of National Geographic magazines but there have been a few occassions where we have traveled out of our way if there are some weird rock formations enroute. It’s nothing more than that, honest!

Well, even if you cannot separate your sedimentary rocks from your metamorphics (for the record, something I know nothing about) Cappadocia is definitely an astonishing place to visit. We had only booked two nights in Goreme but ended up staying for five.

The ideal thing about Goreme was that it was at altitude, this meant that early mornings and evenings were much cooler than down on the coast. By giving up our sleep ins, we were actually able to get out and do some walking, which still to this day remains the one of the highlights of our Cappadocia trip.

Our favourite walk was the beautiful ‘Love Valley’

near Goreme. We started from the top of the canyon near Uchisar (the dolmus driver can drop you near the begin of the track) and walked down towards Cavusin and then back along the road towards Goreme. The first half of the walk was especially beautiful with wave shaped rocks towering above us on both sides. The floor of the canyon is covered in old fruit trees and old grapevines. Further along the valley, old windows and doors appear in the rocks. The ‘fairy chimneys’ made the perfect houses – the caves are cool even on the hottest days and apparently quite cosy in the winter. At the end of the valley, the rocks change again and turn into well ‘phalic’ shapes that give it the name ‘love’ valley.

Goreme is packed with travel agencies all offering basically the same tours. Not liking the sound of the ‘visit nine different attractions in one day before ending up in a carpet/alabastor/ceremics factory’ tours, we decided to hire a automobile for two days and have a look around at our own pace.

During our five day stint we took in the Open Air Museum, the Devrent Valley, Keslik Monastery, Soganli

Valley, Uchisar Castle, Derinkuyu underground city and the Ihlara Valley. While we certainly had a good look around and ticked off all the must sees, some things are a bit over hyped and in hinesight we got just as much enjoyment from hiking around the valleys. Even wandering the backstreets of Goreme was great. Many of the locals still live inside the rocks and have made the most astonishing homes there. Some very tasteful botique hotels are popping up in the village – Chris had to drag me away from them before the owners came out and asked me what I was doing!

Something that certainly was high on the enjoyment factor was the hot air balloon ride that we ended up on our last morning. Ironically we took off from the Rose Valley that we hiked on our second morning and ended up landing in garden at the begin of the White Valley. After wacthing the sunrise from a high elevation, we caught a good wind current down the love valley, guiding alongside rock formations and skimmed over the tops of trees.

Such a slow and peaceful way to travel – the biggest surprise was the sheer

number of balloons. There must nearly be 100 of them, the pilots have to keep speaking to each other on their walkie talkies to make sure they do not run into each other!

Overall, Cappadocia was a great place to relax as well as a chance to burn off those kababs (they do vege ones!) and icecreams that we have both grown a bit too fond of.

Next stop… Bogazkale. Never heard of it? No neither have we!

There are two pages of pics on this blog. Click on the 2 to see the next page, Mum!

More Source:

Let It Rock | Weddingbee
How to Entertain Our Guests? | Weddingbee
Hot Air Ballooning in Capadoccia, Central Turkey
Cowboy Mouth

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Submited at Tuesday, August 31st, 2010 at 6:00 pm on Middle East by jessica
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