Cappadocia trip March 2011 by Alistair.

We had talked much about all the things that we would do whilst we wintered in Turkey, but all too soon our time was running out, so action had to be taken. One of the "must do" things was a trip to Cappadocia. We had choices, hire a car, public service bus or an agency tour. Having been offered a very cheap tour deal, we took the plunge and bought the tickets for the agency tour.

We were due to be picked up outside the marina gates at 05.30 am on a cold Tuesday morning. We had noted that snow was forecast inland and at almost any location higher than sea level.

Cappadocia, I should mention is almost 600 km inland, on a high plain, originally formed by volcanic erruptions millions years ago. Due to the nature of the volcanic rock, nature and man (who began to inhabit this area over 10,000 years ago) turned the whole area into a weird and quite amazing area, as I hope you will see from the following photographs.

So, we boarded the bus, armed with bags of crisps, boks, etc to keep the family fed and amused.

We were part of a small group, with tour guide, "Sueit" who kept us all interested with talks on history, nature, politics and even the odd funny story.

We had not gone far when we stopped at a road side resteraunt for breakfast and toilet break.

Everything was organised to quite a tight schedule, so 45 minutes later we were on the road again, climbing into the mountains and crossing a high pass, where we stopped for a photo shoot.

As we continued, our guide advised us that our first main stop would be in the cite of Konya. If you read up on the history of Konya, you will find that it is very old, the scene of great battles, the center of all kinds of religious beliefs, and is now regarded as a holy city where the Koran is rigorously observed. Women are veiled, there is a prestigious university, and you may not have much in the way of "fun" night clubs.

Oh, and also there is a very large industrial Aluminium Smelter, originally built by the Russians, so now not all that modern, but it is a big employer, although it apparently has created a bit of local polution which may not have helped in increasing longevity.

This was a photo taken from the moving bus, which shows only a small part of the aluminium smelter site.

Our stop was to see the Mevlana Monastery, which  was once the monasetry of the Dancing  Dervishes..

These Dancing Dervishes are what is left of a very old religious group, who worshiped  god through the medium of music and dance. A non believer might sum the performance up as a few guys whirling around in a sort of trance, but there are stages to the dance, which is always followed in an exact routine. This includes the portrayal of being poor, with the exception of God,- that the dancer has lost his worldly troubles, that they will receive a blessing from heaven, and with further high speed spins, the dancer will reach a trance like state and apparently will achieve ecstasy? wow!!

I am not going to suggest that the religious zeal has gone, but these days I think that the most of the dancing is done for the benifit of tourist trade.

The mosque/museum also houses a Museum of Islamic Art, which was very interesting.

There were examples of manuscripts, carpets and musical instruments.

Regrettably we could not take photos inside, but the building itself was quite spectacular.

The tower is decorated in green majolica, and is very majestic.

Even the grave stones have the symbolic Dervish hat.

It was a bitterly cold day, and although the history was great, we were very glad to get back into our heated mini bus, and thankfully to our next stop which was lunch. This was fast food Turkish style, all inclusive buffet eating, but still done in 45 minutes.

The next part of our journey was a long, (200km) and boring stretch of road, almost straight and at a level of over 1000 m above the sea. Our guide advised an after lunch nap!

By late afternoon, we reached Cappadocia and our next and final site visit for the day, an underground city at Saratli..

This sounds a bit grand, what we actually saw was one of many examples of an underground cavern system where people variously lived, hid from enemies and worshiped.

There are many examples of these underground cavern systems in the area, some are in fantastic condition given the fact that excavating the first of the caves may well have started in 3500BC.

It is known that the cave systems were excavated in stages over a long period of time, but it seems that they were not used much after 1100 AD.

Incredibly, there is not much recorded about the underground cave systems until the early 1900's when mostly by accident they started to be rediscovered. Now there are at least 26 major cave sites in the area.

There is no doubt that the soft volcanic lava/rock was a major reason the the caves were first excavated, and it could well be that being underground, they were hard to find and easy to defend in time of war.

Another benifit of being underground is a more stable temperature, cooler in summer and warmer in winter, so an obvious attraction to a local trying to get a foot on the property ladder.

The family entering a cave.

Round wheels were used as doors. These were carved out underground from seams of much harder "basalt" rock, and ran in grooves, so that the wheel/door would pretty much seal up an entrance.

Ventilation shafts were in evidence, as were wells, drainage for waste, food storage, cooking and general living areas.

The early cave dwellers may not have been all that big!

Just the place for your pots and pans!

Looking down into one of the wells,- look at the sides and you will see holes, which were foot rests for climbing up and down.

No cheap aluminium ladders from B&Q in those days!

Well, after a couple of hours of squeezing ourselves through various low and narrow cave routes, we returned to the surface and were whisked to our hotel for the trip.

Thank goodness, we had radiators and plenty of hot water. so time for a quick wash up and then down to the dining room for a good feed.

Next morning was an early start, which was good for us , as the girls tend to be up and about very early.

There was almost a very big disaster when the girls, and us, thought about a bit of early morning TV- it turned out that out of 10 TV channels, about half of them were pornographic!!, luckily for the good of our girls minds, Linda made a dive and pulled the plug from the wall socket before any harm was done. So much for the religion!!

Anyway, suitably fed, we set off on our first site visit of the day. This was to see the first of many rock formations, which have been formed by thousands of years of weathering and a bit of hacking and gouging by the locals of the period.

These rock towers are generally termed "Fairy Chimneys" or "Fairy Houses". The evolution of these formations is really quite simple. The rock  is generally very soft, and over the years has been  eroded

by wind, water and at this altitude, the action of freeze / thaw.  However, where a harder stone/rock lay,

it gve a degree of protection against erosion, and that is how the towers were formed.

The "fairy" term came about before people came to understand geology, and folk assumed that the large stones were placed on top of the towers by some Fairy or other being.

 The girls of course firmly believe that fairies did indeed form these towers!!

It really is an amazing sight to see the sculpture that nature has created.

They are so odd looking, that it is no wonder folk thought it was the work of giants or fairies.

This one also in the 'valley of dreams' looks just like a seal.

This is one of the chimneys that has been excavated / hollowed out to form a shelter. This could have been an early council housing scheme, but infact was a monastry.

Many of the walls have collapsed, and it is easy to see the work that has been done to create living space.

The Fairy houses were big and small, very often with internal stairways to several floor levels. Also, quite often, the access, ie the front door was up high, presumably to deter an unwanted guest.

There are literally thousands of these Fairy Towers in the Cappadocia area.

After a good look around one of the sites, we moved on to another, this time to see the inside of one of the 400 or so, that had been used as a church.  Our guide told us that this church and adjoining cave were where Mary and Saint ? travelled to and stayed in for a year or two after the death of Jesus. 

It was a particulary good example, which is still used for special occasions today.

The condition of the internal rock carving is very good.

This is Yusuf Koc Church, and unbelievably was used as a dove-cote until recently. Now it is all cleaned up, and the original frescoes are still in good condition. As you would expect wear and tear + vandalisim has not helped, but the artwork is still very good.

Our morning visiting was over, and we were whisked away for a quick lunch, then a bit more sightseeing from various view points in the area.

This valley is called the "Valley of Love"- goodness only knows why??

We called it the cold valley, as it was again a bitterly cold day. Lucky for us, there was a guy with a roadside tea shack, compleate with stove, which we all crowded into, to have our tea. The girls had turkish apple tea-very good it was too.

To round off the day, we were taken to see a pottery and then a carpet shop.

 Our guide demonstrates a local wine jug, hand made, only in this part of Turkey, everything done "in-house".

All the items made were finished to a very high standard, very inticrate  hand painting, but not cheap!!

Next the carpet house- again very inticrate work, but by god, you would need to win the lottery to by even the smallest rug!

It was a very interesting visit- we were shown the various stages of making a traditional Turkish carpet. It is entirely hand made, the fibres used can be wool, cotton or silk, in various combinations.

I used to think that a "Fair Isle" jumper was a big undertaking, but this is monumental. With over 500, yes thats five hundred knots per square centimeter, it can take a woman three years to make one of these rugs.

The rugs are mostly made at home, and in a way similar to the knitting industry back home in Shetland. The carpet warehouse hands out the materials and equipment to women who have been trained to weave the rugs.

It is an industry that fits in well with the traditional role of the "house-wife".

These ladies are probably on a wage, for the benifit of us tourists.

The silk is also home grown. This is the procedure to recover the silk thread from the silk cocoon.

A single cocoon can produce up to 1500m of fine thread.

I dont know if the warehouse owner really expected anyone to buy a rug, but at prices ranging from 1000 Euros to 20,000.00 Euros and up, you would need to seriously want one of these rugs, before you even bother to look at them.

By now, it was time to head back to the hotel for a wash up and then our dinner.

Also, tonight was the "Turkish Night" - an evening of genuine Turkish entertainment, and a genuine "Fairy House" underground night club. It was a "drink all you can" type evening, with snacks and dancing, and boy what dancing it turned out to be.

 It actually ended up that the same group, more or less, came out in different costumes, but they were very good and very entertaining.

And not that bad on the eye either!!

 Our happy go lucky table- trying our best to lower the level of the bottles in the "Drink all you can" festival!

 What fun!

 More costumes........

Then the highlight- the belly dancer. She had a few of us up on stage wiggling around like idiots, but what could you expect after the effect of a bottle or two of Raki!

Then it was a free for all. The girls had taken a little nap earlier, but when the woke up, it was all go!!

By now, it was fun, fun, fun, although some of us wondered if our bus driver was in a fit stste to actually drive us back to the hotel.

Well, 15 minutes later, we go our answer, he did not drive, but our tour guide did, so we were safely delivered back to the hotel, although there was a definite party bus atmosphere.

Next morning, this being the final day, we were up early as usual, but amazingly a blanket of snow covered the ground.

This very misty photo shows a hot air ballon drifting throught the snow shower. The ballon ride is a popular tourist thing, but again quite expensive, and especially not worth doing in a snow storm.

The girls were at home in the snow, and well kitted out in their ski jackets, etc.

After breakfast, it was time to pack up, board the bus and head back to Alanya, a very long bus journey. 

The Fairy towers look a bit different in the snow.

On our return trip, we were entertained by one last factory visit, a producer of stone ornaments.

This small factory make a range of stone items, jewellery, etc, again not something that we came for.

It was all quite basic, nothing high tech. but good results.

I spotted this interesting bit of artwork out the window of the bus- I suspect that it is not that old.

This is the inside of a very old building, which we stopped at on our return trip. It is an original resting house for the traders "caravans" or convoys of pack horses/camels carrying goods along the famous "Silk Road"

These buildings were sited aproximately every 15 - 20 kilometers, which was about as far as the convoy would travel in a day. The "caravan" would bed down here, obviously for a small charge, safe from robbers and bandits, the animals on the lower floor, and the people on the higher level.

The return journey was a bit of a struggle for the bus and driver, especially the 200 km stretch, which was covered in snow, and some of the time we were just crawling along in 1st gear. It really is a desolate place, not much to see out the window.

We obviously made it back, and although it was a whirlwind type tour, it was really very good, and very interesting. Further proof, if proof were needed, that Turkey is a very interesting place to stay, and so much to see, its difficult to know where to start.

Next blog- very soon..............