Last walking day in Cappadocia

The last day of walking in Cappadocia started like all the other days with balloons outside the window.

Today we were walking up Bozdag, the highest mountain in the immediate region. It has steep, rocky cliffs and a flat top, and I was quite nervous about going up since I can get a bit panicky about heights. I'm glad I did go though, to help put my irrational fears in their place.

It wasn't too bad going up and on the tricky bits I kept my eyes on the shoes of the person in front. The view from the top was fantastic - all the valleys we had been walking in were laid out:

Up on the top among the rocks were a few tiny early flowers which we tried not to stand on, but they were hard to see:

I have to admit that while I was attempting to be brave, I was immensely relieved to get to the end - we all got a high five from Firat.  This one doesn't show the drop from the cliffs - I was too scared to take photos! I was very impressed with all the others who went down paths like this very easily.

Our final evening ended at Goreme with the sunset bringing out the red in the mountain we had just been on. 

More Cappadocia

Other highlights of the time in Cappadocia...
Snow
I had expected snow on the mountains, as on the mountain near Ilhara. The high mountains in this area are volcanic.


There was also a fair bit of snow on the ground on the shady slopes:

On the day we walked across the ridges to several villages, there was quite deep snow on the tops:

Villages

Our walks lead us through many of the different villages in the area. Some were formally Greek until the population exchange in 1924, and there are ornate decorations on the houses as at Mustafapasa:

Orthisar is clustered around a crag of hard rock: 

I was really surprised by how many houses had solar water heaters - it must be very affordable in Turkey, so I wonder why it is so expensive in NZ.

Goreme itself is half regular houses and the rest are built into the rocks, so that many houses and restaurants are in caves. For some reason I have no photos of Goreme!  It is a fairly touristy town with lots of souvenir shops, cafes and restaurants. It's one of the few places we saw other tourists and there are a couple of quite flash hotels in town. At the Goreme open air museum rows of buses were lined up and after having seen so many churches out in the valleys, I wasn't inclined to line up in a queue to see some of the larger ones. 

Food

Our tour guide, Firat, took us to many great places to eat and I am enjoying Turkish food.  On the walks things were sometimes quite simple, like the fresh juice stands we would come across:

Or the little coffee shop in the Ilhara Valley:

We had two picnics, one in a cave and the other on a grassy slope looking out over the valley we had climbed into and out of:

We also went to several restaurants, with one in Goreme having outstanding local food of great variety. We tried pide, fish from the river, lots of lentil soup, and excellent meat and vege dishes.  Cappadocian wine proved to be a great accompaniment - we had seen the small grape fields on our walks.

In between and around there was Turkish tea, apple tea, coffee, pancakes, dried fruit, Turkish delight, rice pudding, and the best chicken burger and chips I have had in ages. It was definitely not junk food and I am sure I had to have the chips to try the local potatoes.

Good company

Above all there was great company.  I haven't done a tour or guided walk before so I was a bit worried about who else would be on the tour.  Surprise, surprise, they were people like me who loved being outdoors, seeing new places, walking, and eating good food. There were even people who could be arm twisted to go to the local bar, where I discovered that one raki was pleasant, two was one too many.  

Several of us went to the local hamam for a sweaty, soapy experience and to be scrubbed of every last bit of dirt followed by an oil massage.

We had memorable discussions and friendly arguments about politics, heard about other places that people had been and generally always had someone to chat too.  I am feeling quite lonely now in Egirdir without the rest of the group!!

Cappadocia balloons

[Note for pedants like me: Apologies for the incorrect spelling of Turkish names. I haven't been able to work out how to do some Turkish characters on this site - the umlaut, dotless i and the hoodacky on the g in Egirdir that makes it silent.]

Life in Cappadocia is not just about rock formations - there are also balloons.  Every morning I could look out my window and see balloons rising up into the air:

The noise of the gas burners sounded like breathing as they went overhead:

By about 7.30 there would be balloons in every direction - I counted 50 one day and this is the quiet season:

I managed to stay on the ground as the price for a balloon flight is very high, and the NZ balloon tragedy is still a bit too fresh in my mind.  But they are a beautiful sight.

Fairy chimneys and other pointy shapes

The rock formations in Cappadocia are outstanding - and they are everywhere you look.  I have wanted to come to Cappadocia since I was about 6 or 8 and saw a picture of a group of rock formations with doors and windows cut into them in an old book called "The World's Greatest Wonders".  The picture fascinated me, and  as it was right at the start of the book, it was one I looked at over and over again.  It took me many years to work out that I could actually go to the place where these rocks were. I don't think I found the same rocks as in the picture, but I saw enough to  be very happy!

 I spent five days walking in the valleys and hills around Goreme with the walking group and every day was different. The first day we walked to some of the most infamous rocks at Love Valley:

This was one of the few times we came across other groups as these formations are close to bus parking. Most days we were well off the bus route circuit.

This area is volcanic, made up of ash layers that have resulted in soft, easily erodable rock, except where there is a harder granite stone giving them a harder cap, as above and below.

The ash layers are different colours - white and red predominating, but some patches of yellow too.  This is in White Valley:

And this is around Rose Valley:

While the natural features are stunning in themselves, what is even more fascinating in Cappadocia is how people have used them.  All through the valleys are rock cut churches from the early Christian settlements - around the 3rd-12th centuries.  Some are tiny monastic cells, and others are small chapels with painted ceilings, while several are much larger with carved pillars and multiple chambers.

This is from the Grape church:

Once people converted to Islam, the churches were then reused as stables and pigeon houses - we saw huge numbers of pigeon houses through the valleys, many with painted windows to attract the pigeons:

And here are more pigeon houses in Pigeon Valley, where we met a man who had just lost ten pigeons to a buzzard - we were shown the "scene  of the crime", a mass of white feathers. There's not as many pigeons in the valleys as previously, buzzards and other predators reducing the numbers, but everywhere we went we saw the pigeon houses:

At Uchisar a huge rock outcrop has been used as a castle, one of three we could see, but the only that we had to climb up.

Others have been used as houses or store rooms:

And some are still used today:

It's quite hard to walk quickly in the area as there is so much to look at - go around a corner and there are more quirkily shaped rocks:

 And still there are rocks to see and photograph:

So that old black and white photograph in the book has led me to a place that is totally absorbing and I got to see it in the best way possible, walking through the valleys and up and over the rocks themselves:

Ilhara Valley

The first day of walking was in the Ilhara Valley - a long narrow gorge with small 9th-10th century hidden churches carved out of the soft rock and covered in frescoes.  Parts of the gorge are shady so there was still snow and ice to walk on in some places:

As we walked, we started to get to know each other as a group.  Most people are English so I am back in my home culture, which always makes me notice the cultural differences between English (rather than British) people and Pakeha New Zealanders.  We also have a friendly Irish woman - that's familiar territory! And a Canadian woman living in the UK who is also good company.  Amazingly, I am also on the same tour as Loraine Wilson who wrote the best walking guide to Crete:  http://www.cicerone.co.uk/product/detail.cfm/book/525/title/the-high-mountains-of-crete

Loraine has been a tour guide herself for many years so she was keeping  a watchful eye on our local tour guide Firat.  Luckily Firat was up to the job and turned out to be a charming, energetic and skilled tour guide, not daunted at making those of us with weak knees at heights get down the tricky bits, nor at keeping up with the late night drinkers, yet remaining cheerful every morning.

Lunch was at a little restaurant by the river:

We finished off the day at our first group of Fairy chimneys, the spectacularly eroded rocks of this region:

Istanbul from Egirdir

Finally I have time to stop and write.   I'm in a lakeside town called Egirdir, surrounded by mountains still with a scattering of snow. I arrived here at 6am after a complicated overnight bus journey so if my thoughts here are a bit random, that may explain why.

It's a bit hard to think back to Istanbul after the fantastic time I had in Cappadocia, but Istanbul was great too so I do want to put it down.  The best part of Istanbul was the company - I met up with Matthew at the airport and his friend Sue joined us the next morning.  I don't think the city would have been quite the same if I had been on my own and it added a wonderful dimension to it, even when Matthew relied on his directional skills rather than mine and Sue's slightly more accurate map reading.

We saw the tourist sites - the Haghia Sophia church with its Byzantine mosaics and huge dome; Topkapi Palace's beautiful iznik tile covered walls; the view of the city from the Galata tower; and had a fish sandwich on the Galata bridge.  However, the highlight was the Kariye (Chora) church out by the city walls.  It's a small byzantine chapel with stunning mosaics - finely detailed and very well preserved. There is also the most alive fresco painting I have ever seen in a medieval church - I didn't take a photo as I didn't think I could do justice to it, but here's one of the mosaics:

Quite often we got pleasantly lost in the streets of Istanbul,  and it was good to get away from the mass tourism of Sultanahmet square. We spent the rest of our time exploring smaller mosques, a large Greek Orthodox church, learning to use Istanbul's tram system and trying out all the food options. We went to Istanbul's historic kofta restaurant for meatballs and found a non touristy pudding shop for rice/custard dishes. We tasted a range of meze and had copious quantities of tea and turkish coffee. Oh and the breakfast at our hotel, Hotel Minel (http://www.minelhotel.com/) is still the best one of the trip so far - yoghurt, honey, bread, cucumber, tomato, cheese, olives - yes that's the usual - but then also fresh omelette and hot cheese pancakes.  I am quite preoccupied with food as you may notice in subsequent blogs.

I joined the tour group after two days and shifted to their hotel. We had the obligatory visit to the Blue Mosque in the morning, and then a couple of us went into the underground cistern - a strange place of pillars and randomly assorted reused columns, including two giant Medusa heads, that support the roof of part of Istanbul's old water system:

I said goodbye to Matthew and Sue over another pudding and then it was time to fly to Kayseri in Cappadocia. More after I have had a cup of tea.

Istanbul!!!
I have decided that long plane rides are devices of torture - sleep deprivation, confinement and constant noise (two very tired babies). Next time I am walking here or taking a cruise ship.

However, it is wonderful to wake up after a fantastic sleep and be in Istanbul.  It is freezing cold outside but warm in my room.  When we arrived the muezzin was calling from Aghia Sofia overlooking the tiny street the hotel is on  - magical.

Flying over Iraq - very brown ground, hard to work out the lines on the ground as it isn't the patterns of farms I'm used to.  Rivers that are trained into channels and squares - remnants of the marshes? Then, after some cloud, over the mountains of east Turkey covered in snow, with towns in the valleys looking very cut off from the world.