Day 5 - More of Göreme

Simple objects in plain sight bring out the magic of Cappadocia. As I look at my photos, I go back to the calm and quiet of Göreme, the little village where our cave home is.

Day 5 started after 3 hours of sleep since we went out the night before to Ürgup, a nearby city of 40 minutes ride from Göreme, for a live music show. We packed and left the luggage at the hotel before we went out on a tour in Göreme.

We met Bill, a retired stock trader from Seattle and his wife, Terry. After retirement, they sold their house and started traveling around the world. Heather, a former teacher, is from Australia; and our guide, Dhalia.

Our first stop was Kaymakli, the underground city of eight storeys high all underground. The Hitites built the first underground cities around 3rd century, then the Byzantines, then centuries after, each generation built more. There are over 200 underground cities in Turkey and only about 40 were discovered and opened for tourism. At Kaymaklı, the first storey was for animals so when the enemies came, they might think the caves were just for keeping livestock. The second storey were living rooms and food warehouses, which had built in holes on the ground for food storage, wine storage and communication with the cave next door. There were also in-wall candle holders and hooks on the ceiling to hang a baby crib.

The tunnels from cave to cave were extremely narrow, only allowing one person to pass at any time. It was also very low so we had to lower our head and back or squat down to pass through to go into the side rooms, which widened and heightened to normal size and height. The third storey down was for community kitchen, dining and living rooms. The fourth level was already 25 meters (about 75 feet) below the ground and was for living area.

For defence, the Hitites invented a wheel which may be rolled into a curved ditch right in front of major gates inside the city to block the invading enemies. From the insiders' end, three people will be strong enough to move the over the few-ton stone wheel. From the outside since the passage only allows one person to pass at any given time, even if there were thousands of troops outside, the one person at the front facing the wheel would have no way to move it. Meanwhile the stone hole built in the middle of the wheel would allow the defenders to poke the enemy using a spear or knife and eliminate him. When we were 25 feet under ground, the air was still fresh enough for us even though we were going up and down dozens of tunnels about 1.3 meters tall. This was because there was a built-in air shaft that went down to the eighth level. Each storey and each room had a hole to connect to other rooms and eventually got connected to the air shaft for ventilation. The entire city from defense or living perspective was truly amazing.

We then went to a winery, the Monk's Valley, the Imagination Valley, and took a hike at the bottom of the Rose Valley.

Empty 2nd floor of the newly built winery.

Cappadocia's famous fairy chimneys, got its name, according to locals, looked like fairies or the fairies created them. Göreme, in the Central Anatolia (Cappadocia) was a lake long time ago. Three main volcanoes erupted and most of the chimneys we saw nowadays are made of sulfur. The rock formation that looked like mushrooms were made up of two different stones. The cap is basalt and pressed down the body part, which was made of a lighter stone, sulfur. When erosion by snow, rain or snow took place, the cap which was harder did not get affected as much as the body which was softer and got chipped away. The two stones were not connected. The cap was simply sitting on top of the body.

At 7 PM, we boarded the night bus to Fethiye. Before boarding, I went to Fat Boy, a Göreme local bar. The girl at the bar told me the ride might take over 14 hours instead of the initial 12 hours quoted by the bus company. Great! I pumped up my Dramamine dosage...