Today we were booked in to do one of the tours offered in Cappadocia. There are 3 main tours, Red, Green and Blue, each taking you to different attractions. The day before when we walked all through the Red and Rose Valley, we had largely followed to Red route already. The Blue route was on ATV which left the Green as a viable option for us. This tour would take us out of Goreme and show us quite a few different things, so this is the tour we opted for. We were on a tour of about 16 people.
* Goreme Panorama
First stop was a beautiful view over the valley with the volcano in the background. We stopped here to learn a bit more about what the tour was going to entail and to take some beautiful pictures.
* Onyx Factory
This stop took us inside a jewellery shop, which immediately put my heckles up as I don’t trust being taken into shops on tours. It seemed genuine, but it was awful because I basically wanted everything inside. We learnt about Turquoise - which literally translates to Turkish Stone. Turquoise can be found in many places, but the stone specific to this country has golden flecks and veins through out it. As it ages, it changes from a bright teal to a deeper green.
Also here we learnt about a new stone that’s been discovered called “sultanite”, (zultanite) literally “Sultan’s Stone”. It can only be found in this region of Cappadocia, and it is exquisite. On the surface, it looks like a bit of a dirty brown, shiny gemstone. But the moment the light changes, so does the colour of the stone. Bright purple, bright green, blues - apparently 16 different colours this stone can turn depending on the light that surrounds it. I inquired as to how much a brooch cost and it was…slightly too expensive (I think about €180).
* Pigeon Valley
In ancient times, the people of the area utilised pigeons for a number of reasons.
1) Their poop made good fertiliser for their crops and plants
2) They made good messengers between towns
3) Used their eggs for the frescos painted inside each of the caves to keep the paint on, and also help set the paint.
To be honest, they probably ate the pigeons too! Anyway, this explained all of the tiny holes that dotted the caves that we had seen the day before: literally pigeon holes. Holes were carved into the caves to attract pigeons to roost so they would do lots of pooping and egg laying. And that’s where the term pigeon holes comes from!
Here the view was also spectacular, and the sparse trees were bowing under the weight of the evil eyes attached.
* Derinkuyu Underground City
This was one of the main reasons we chose this tour. On the way to this destination, I couldn’t help but fall asleep! Which meant I was a little more refreshed when we arrived. They think there are as many (if not more) 100 underground cities and villages throughout the area, and a couple of them are open to the public. At first, it just seemed like ordinary caves that we had descended into, but soon it became apparent that this was quite different. 8 of the 13 floors were open to the public - all underground, of course! A whole city could be housed down there - originally only 2 floors had been excavated but during Roman times they expanded it to 13 to be used to shelter the people and even their livestock.
Kitchens, bedrooms, classrooms, churches, winery, stable - we saw one of each which was less than 10% of the entire structure. I couldn’t get over how small some of the stairways and tunnels became! This was to help prevent raids in ancient times, not just because they were getting lazy with the chipping like I thought. Even 5 foot little me had to bend completely in double to get through some of the entrance ways (and think really thin thoughts). There were a few elderly people in our tour group and they really struggled with the stairs and passageways.
* Lunch in Ihlara
Next up we had lunch. It was clearly a super touristy place but the food ended up being quite tasty. I went with the chicken kebap. We chatted with the guys opposite us who had been doing their Erasmus in Turkey near Pammukale, one from Romania and one from Spain.
* Walking in Ihlara Valley
Now we had a 4km walk through the longest valley in the world - it comes to 14km. If Dan and I had been by ourselves, I think we could have done the length of it! However the 4km was quite gentle and very beautiful. Originally, about 130 cave churches had been built into the valley, but time, erosion and rockslides have left only a handful standing. It was hard to take photos here because the colours were so contrasty, but the colour of the river running through the centre was a beautiful teal colour.
On our tour were two guys that we nicknamed the Instagram models. At literally every turn, they would stop, perch, stand and pose - obviously working to get the perfect instagram shot (they even had a polaroid). I just found it rather hilarious - I love having my photo taken at these things but I look first at the scenery and then decide if I want my photo taken, whereas these guys seemed to just be on the look out for the perfect portrait!
About halfway along we stopped for a Turkish tea, and saw a baby goat and randomly some turtles.
* Selime Monastery
If I have a gripe about the tour, it’s that we didn’t spend nearly enough time here. Get rid of the Onyx Factory and allow more time here, please! It’s an enormous cave structure, and to get from section to section it really felt like you were scrambling over rock roof tops. My shoes aren’t very grippy so I kept expecting myself to tumble into the valley below! It was originally used as a Monastery, and then over time it became a religious school, and also a “castle” of sorts as it had perfect view to the Silk Road and could keep a watchful eye on those passing by.
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So as you can see, a long day! I kept my travel sickness bands on for most of the day, and that definitely helped with the bus ride.
But the day was far from over. We returned to the hotel briefly to get dressed up to go to the Turkish Dinner that night in a cave restaurant. It was going to be a bit touristy, but oh well! I was pretty sure we should have haggled the price down, but when I researched it I found we had paid the equivalent of €10-15 less than average anyway, so I was happy. We were picked up from our hotel by two gentleman who drove us to a neighbouring town, the only words being spoken were that they would pick us up again at 10.30.
We followed a suited gentleman inside and we were shown to our table. The room was a giant circle with a flat stage area in the middle, and cave seating all around the outside. We weren’t the table closest to the action, but we were raised a little bit and had a good view. Those behind us would have struggled to see any thing.
Our table had been pre-set with a big range of hummus, dips, cheese and more of that amazing Turkish bread. A waiter came up to us and said, “Our drinks for tonight are wine (pointing to an enormous bottle on the table), raki and soft drink.” I picked up at raki, and asked if we could try a bit of that and also have some wine. I fully expected the raki to just be a shot each, but when he returned with a 350ml bottle and began pouring it into a decanter I realised that we may have made a bit of a mistake.
Raki is very similar to ouzo, and you mix it with water where it turns milky. Across the course of the evening, Dan and I finished our raki, and also made a very decent dent into the 1.5L bottle of red wine… The other guests at our table didn’t drink, so we made a little bit of use of this…[cue headaches for the next day].
Soon the room was completely full and everyone was eating merrily away. We ordered our main dish (the dips would have been enough!) and both Dan and I chose the lamb. This was to come out much later - for now we sat back and enjoyed the dancing.
There was a troupe of 5 men and 5 women who displayed various Turkish styles of dance with amazing traditional costumes. At one point, another lady entered the ring and performed the “whirling dervish” style of dance with her amazing dress, which lit up. I had seen something similar in Egypt and it is very pretty!
Just as our lamb was delivered, the 5 men and 5 ladies were inviting people down to the ring. We figured YOLO and joined the fray - upon which time Dan started to panic as the ladies were picking only men from the circle. It was a mock wedding/wooing ceremony, and each man had to perform for the lady, and invariably she gave him a big thumbs DOWN. It was hilarious watching the foreigners trying to do the Turkish dance moves, and thankfully for Dan he wasn’t called up. Afterwards we danced a little bit, before returning to our lamb, laughing our heads off.
We had introduced ourselves to the other couple on our table who were from Manchester. We had a good chat before the music became too loud - this was their first time to Turkey and while we had been dancing - they had filmed us! We exchanged details and promised to send the video (which they did :) ).
After our main course, the dancing turned to belly dancing. The 5 ladies changed costumes and one was clearly the “lead” belly dancer. Afterwards, a solo dancer came out, and she was utterly beautiful and shimmered her way around the room. I was very impressed! She then grabbed various men and women from the audience and had them try some hip wiggles and boob jiggles, much to everyone’s hilarity.
Soon it was time to end, and Dan and I were just finishing off our raki when Jay our hotel manager surprisingly walked in. He had come to collect us, but he was a little early and so we sat and chatted while we finished our drink. We were wondering when we would have to pay for the liquor but turns out it was all included! Jay couldn’t get over the fact that we had drunk the full bottle of raki and didn’t even appear to be drunk.
When we got back to the hotel, he invited us into the reception area to sit with his friends and eat some, what I think is called “raw kebap” meat in pita bread. It was actually rather spicy, and I had eaten so much at the dinner that I couldn’t quite finish mine. It was so much fun talking and laughing for ages with Jay and his friends (who didn’t speak much English), but we had to go to bed eventually because we had an early start in the morning.
This morning we had decided to sleep in slightly and not visit Sunset Point like originally planned. The idea now was to do it on the morrow, which now only left about 4 or 5 hours sleep…and we had had a lot to drink…the morning was going to be interesting!
It was a long and eventful day, and I was certainly tired by the time my head hit the pillow (after drinking as much water as I could manage…)
Until next time,
xx
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