Cappadocia Day 2
One of the great things about a room right next to the hotel office is that it comes with its own built in wake up call, as people gather in front of our door early in the morning, striking up loud conversations in a variety of languages. Mrs. Van Winkle just covers her head with a pillow (brave woman) and goes back to sleep, while I use the new found time to catch up on some work before calling the boys.
As with most days, we head off to breakfast with no idea what we want to do. So when one of the hotel staff comes by and asks if we want to go on a tour, we figure why not? Cappadocia is pretty spread out, so this solves the problem of renting a car and driving around on our own trying to find the places we want to see. The only catch is that the tour leaves 10 minutes later.
With limited time, we dash back to the room, skip the shower (a little gross, yes, but not near as gross as the bathtub in our room), hold our breath long enough to brush our teeth, toss a few things in a day pack and head for the door. Each tour advertises a maximum of 12 people (some of the stops are small caves and tunnels where big groups won’t fit), so we’re not at all surprised to get on a bus with 26 people, and for the guide to happily tell us this is the largest group he has even had.
About 40 minutes from Goreme, we stop at the Derinkuyu Underground City, an eleven level subterranean complex, that by some estimates, was occupied by as many as 25,000 people (and is only one of over 200 such complexes discovered in this area so far) seeking refuge from attacking armies. Originally built about 3,000 years ago, the network of tunnels and rooms was constantly expanded by successive civilizations, until they were abandoned altogether in the Middle Ages.
Another hour on the bus takes is to the Ilhara Valley, a 16km canyon honeycombed with houses and churches cut into the rock walls. It is believed that as many as 30,000 people inhabited the valley, predominantly Christians seeking to avoid Roman persecution. We get dropped off part way along and hike about 4km down to a collection of restaurants where the bus will meet us. In the “it’s a small world” category, at lunch we meet a couple from Calgary, one of whom is a pharmacist (unfortunately a hospital pharmacist, so not a user of our software, but she has knows of it and people that use it).
Our last stop is the Selime Monastery, another complex carved into the rock, which is one of the largest religious buildings in Cappadocia. Of the churches we have seen so far, these are by far the biggest, spanning multiple levels (that the guide advises we don’t go up to because it is dangerous, but seriously, doesn’t that just make it more likely that we’ll go?), and complete with ornately carved and painted columns.
Now no tour would be complete without the obligatory stop at the “local craft center”, and this one is no exception. We get the five minute demo of how onyx is carved and then are shuttled directly into the showroom, where spectacular deals await. I don’t want to gloat, since it probably doesn’t happen to everyone, but because our group is so large, we get offered a special 10% discount on anything we want to buy.
Tour over, we return to Goreme at around 6:30 and grab a quick dinner before heading back to the hotel to see our new “deluxe” room. As promised, this one is in one of the caves (the pointy building in the picture below), and compared to the hovel we slept in last night, is like checking into the Ritz Carlton. Other than being just slightly over 6 feet tall, and with walls so think that the only place I can get wireless internet is by cramming myself up into the windowsill it is a HUGE trade up, which makes for two very happy travelers.
