Cappadocia

Meagan hoped Mulder would be there. David just hoped they would take Meagan away from him
see all photos »

We got off our overnight bus very excited for our very first transfer to a hotel since our journey began. We were greeted by a 14 year old, extremely shy boy who kindly walked us to our cave hotel - so much for our transfer. Our room was nice but cold and very dark (What a cave is like we suppose).

The area known as Cappadocia is made up of heaps of raised mounds known as fairy chimneys. Over the years the inhabitants dug out houses into these mounds and the landscape is filled with cave houses, churches and stables. We organised 2 tours whilst we were here and the first tour took us to some of these amazing cave homes and a huge underground city. It was great fun exploring all the different doorways and passages. We also went to Ihlara gorge for a nice hike and were able to visit some ancient churches that were carved into the sides of the gorge.

The underground city
see all photos »

The next days tour took us to more fun houses (one where you had to climb vertical shafts to reach the rooms) and to an area known as imagination valley where rock formations resemble all sorts of things including snoopy, a gorilla and a crocodile. We also got to go to a pottery demonstration and Meagan was able to have a go making something. She got her pants caught in the kick wheel and ended up with a blob of clay as her finished product. It was very entertaining for the whole group.

Our last day in Cappadocia was spent going to its most famous attraction - the open air museum. The museum is basically an area of well made and preserved churches built many years ago. Some of the churches had elaborate frescoes decorating the interior but basically it was very similar to what we had seen the previous days. On the way home we stopped into the most exciting place in the world - the international UFO museum. We were lured into it by ET's winning smile but soon left as it was no where near as fun as we thought it would be.

We wish we stayed here
see all photos »

We happily jumped onto another overnight bus (we were getting good at sleeping anywhere) to start another tour in Selcuk, our last Turkey destination.