Cappadocia

Yeah this place is beautiful. I suggest you first look at the pictures and then read on. (Whatever literary “style” is gone with this last sentence, but yeah, cappadocia is all about the natural wonders... Or is it?)

Yesterday (wednesday) I first visited the volcano lake, where I was greeted by a few toursbuses that were just leaving. It made for good pictures. Then onward to the underground cities, and I was recommended by a turk who worked in germany to go to the one kaymakli, not the deeper one; on the way I briefly had a traildog accompanying me which was very cool—he did first just want food, but kept me company even if I didnt have anything for him.

Arrived at derinkuyu really, _really_ tired, as if I had just done interval training: headwind. But the road to kaymakli was with mostly tailwind so that was a breeze, literally. And man, those underground cities are impressive. Some background—which I didn’t know until after I visited: these were created around the 7th centuries mostly, and were also used as hiding places against muslims, mongolians, also still under ottoman rule, and even during the 20th century. And it’s all because of the volcanic rock that they managed to make this: they are huge. You go in, and the it goes deeper, there are tunnels (which they could close off with rolling rocks as doors) which go on for 5 minutes, it has multiple levels, ventilation, and they even connected kaymakli underground with derinkuyu, which is 10 km!! I am also glad I didn’t go to the five story one in derinkuyu, because two stories, albeit very spread out, is definitely enough for me. By the way, I was the last person to enter ( and also to leave).

After that I decided to push on, with onsetting darkness, to Cappadocia’s göreme, to spend two nights there. Now I won’t rant about tourism again, but let me just say this: my lonely planet guide says the “open air museum” was 30 lira, about 5 years back. I expected 300. They charge 450-480 lira now for entering…. So I didn’t enter, and instead went and walked around some of the valleys; see pictures. Absolutely stunning. Also met some cool indian / british guy by chance and had chai (and a beer after—dont want to become too turkish) among old people playing rummikub.

Maybe tomorrow morning I will update this with a picture of balloons; maybe I won’t. In any case I think I will cycle to ankara in about a week, and that will really be the end of this turkey trip. But the journey of middle earth [ahem, the motherland] is about to begin.Læs mere