Goreme, Day 1

Goreme, Turkey

 

Looks like the "electric" is back on for the time being, so we'll see if I can't fire off an update of the last few days here in Goreme. It's also snowing pretty hard here, which would be great if I were in Tahoe or Tremblant, but I'm not, so it seems like a good day to catch up on updates.

 

When the bus from Istanbul, Turkey arrived last Wednesday morning in Goreme, I went straight to the Shoestring Hostel, which is a popular destination for backpackers in Goreme. Turns out, there are literally dozens of hostels/pensions and hotels in town so finding a place to stay in the off season really isn't a problem. The Shoestring Hostel had a bed open in their dorm room (6 beds) for around 5$US per night, so that suited me just fine. They also serve a great french toast breakfast for around 2$US, so I quickly took advantage of that as well. I'd been told by other travelers that Goreme is one of the few places where taking an organized tour is actually a good thing, since the sites are pretty spread out. The Shoestring had a tour leaving at 9.30am for around 30$US, so I downed the french toast and hopped into the mini bus.

 

The mini bus was full with a bunch of other travelers mostly representing Australia and Canada (other then me). Everyone seemed really cool and we all immediately started to get along. First stop was just outside of Goreme at an overlook of Pigeon Valley. Pigeon Valley is pretty much right beside Goreme and is indeed a valley with lots of pigeons in it. There are also dozens, if not hundreds, of houses and dwellings carved into the rock.

 

(You might want to read up on Cappadocia to get an idea of the area. The quick story is that it is famous for its underground cities and houses carved into the soft rock.)

 

At the Pigeon Valley overlook, we got out first idea of what awaited us for the rest of the day... Turns out, the tour is pretty extensive with lots to see before the sun goes down, so you hurry along at a rather quick pace. After just a few minutes to take in the view and snap some pictures, it was back into the mini-bus to get to our next destination, the underground city of Kaymakli.

 

Kaymakli is this amazing city entirely underground and carved right out of the soft rock. There are hundreds of rooms and passageways that you could easily get lost in. It is some 6-7 levels deep, though it's tough to tell where one story starts and the other ends. Amazingly, the temperature is almost always a constant 10 degrees, regardless of the outside air temperature. No idea how many people ever lived in the caves at any one time, but there are elaborate ventilation systems, rock sliding doors and hundreds of food pits for long term living. After a quick tour of the city, we raced over to Ihlara Gorge.

 

Ihlara Gorge is famous for having dozens of churches carved into its vertical walls. The gorge isn't all that deep, it only takes a few minutes to get to the bottom, but the walls are shear cliffs on both sides and there is a small stream following down the middle. With our tour guide blazing a trail up ahead at break neck speed, myself and 3 others decided to do a little exploring of our own and actually climb up the sides of the gorge to see some of the churches. While interesting, I wasn't really blown away but either the gorge or the churches. Maybe I'm a little spoiled with Yosemite Park, but I think the gorge might be a little over rated. We joined back up with the group about 3km down stream where they had stopped for lunch at a local restaurant. After some native Cappadocian dish of chicken and rice, it was back into the mini-bus to see the Selime Monastery.

 

The Selime Monastery is supposed to be one of the better preserved rock carvings in Cappadocia. It's quite a ways outside of Goreme and took nearly an hour to reach by mini-bus. You could clearly see our driver (and guide) were a little agitated that we were running behind schedule because we were hauling in this bus. At one point, one of the Australians turns to me and says "Did we just blow through that stop sign?"... "Yep, we did." The monastery is right off the side of the road and an easy place to explore. You climb up some rocks and generally just wander around the site, exploring the different rooms that have all been carved out. I think there was some history to be learned here but I was too busy off on my own looking for some good pictures, so I missed what the tour guide had to say. (I wasn't alone. While the tour guide was actually really nice, with so little time at each spot a few of us just did our own thing each time so that we had time to get some decent photos.)

 

Next stop was the "fairy chimneys" in a town called Pasabag. These fairy chimneys are yet more rock carvings, but this time they look like huge rock pillars with tiny houses on top. Really quite interesting to be honest and a site to see. At first there was general disappointed that we arrived at Pasabag just after the sunset, but it was a blessing in disguise since we got to see the moon rise as a bright orange ball just behind the chimneys, so that was pretty cool. After tasting some of the local ice cream we raced off to our final destination, the pottery shop in Avanos.

 

Apparently the town of Avanos is famous for its pottery, so we got a somewhat "packaged" tour of the pottery store, followed by our longest stay at any location as we browsed the pottery for sale. To be honest, some of the pottery was actually quite nice, especially some of the plates that I would have liked to purchase, but none of it was all that cheap and the logistics of getting it back to San Francisco just proved to be too much, so no pottery for me.

 

The tour dropped us off back at the hostel around 7pm. While rushed, in the end I thought it was worth it since many of the sites were quite far away and arranging transportation there might not have been worth the hassle. Since we had clear blue skies the entire day, it was actually nice to be out and to get driven to all the "must see spots".

 

For dinner that night, a bunch of us from the hostel headed out for some local Turkish Pizza (Pide), which isn't really all that different from "normal" pizza except that it's served on a long piece of bread (not circular) and comes all cut up instead of whole. As we ate, we joined in with the locals who were watching the Turkey-Switzerland soccer (football) match. If you think Canadians are fanatical about hockey, well then you haven't seen the Turks watch a soccer match. Seeing as this match would decide if Turkey qualified for the World Cup next year, I think every single TV was tuned to the game and certainly every person in Goreme was watching it.

 

I ducked out of dinner a little early to meet up with two girls from San Francisco, who I had meet in Ihlara Gorge earlier that day. They were on a different tour but basically following the same route we were taking. I had noticed that one of the girls was carrying around some pretty serious camera gear and seeing as her lens was bigger then my lens I just had to find out more. Turns out she's a professional photographer from San Francisco, so I drilled her with questions on how to take good pictures throughout the hike and later at dinner. The three of us, (along with a Turkish man and a Russian women who had met online and were on a date... /shrug) watched the end of the game at a local restaurant. Sadly, while Turkey won the game, they didn't win by enough goals, so in the end they did not qualify for the World Cup. Goreme was a quiet town that night....

 

Eva, Sonia and I (the two girls from SF), went out to a local bar after the game and Sonia and I tried to play around with some photography tricks, taking pictures in the dark bar with the candles and water pipes. I didn't get any decent shots, but not to my surprise, she did... So I've still got a lot to learn...

 

All in all a pretty packed day and by midnight I was pretty tired after not sleeping much the night before on the overnight bus from Istanbul, so I headed back to the hostel, where I hung out with some of the other travelers before calling it a day.