Goreme Wrap-up.

Aleppo, Turkey

 

After two beautiful days of clear blue skies in Goreme, the clouds rolled in last Friday on us. For a change, a group of us from the hostel decided to head out for breakfast instead of having at the hostel. After walking around for a bit, we finally came across a place that was both open and offered something "breakfast-like". The restaurant, "Nazar Borek" is run by this super friendly Goreme local named Refik Ciffci and a British ex-pat named Linda. Both of them served us up some local Cappadocian cuisine which was wonderful. Refik was really funny and loved to pose for the camera, so hopefully I can upload a few pictures of him when I can.

 

With the weather cool and overcast, none of us where really in a mood of hiking or exploring so we spent most of the day chilling back at the hostel, eating warm bread and Nutella while trading travel stories. After dinner, most of that group, which included Hyder from Pakistan, Scott from Edmonton, and Hee Eun and Ye Won from South Korea all headed to the bus station to catch buses to their respective destinations. Back at the hostel, I met Becky and Michael from Sydney and hung out with them the rest of the evening.

 

Saturday was once again overcast though not quite as cold, so I decided to head out for some exploring with other Australian traveler named Smaroop. We first headed over towards the Goreme "Open Air Museum" which turned out to be a bad move. I'm not normally one to be all snobbish about the whole "touristy" scene, but in this case the Open Air Museum was a one-stop shop for Goreme tourists. It cost around 10$US to get in and was nothing more then a paved sidewalk around a bunch of carved buildings, all of which you could have seen for free had you just walked down an adjacent valley. The parking lot was full of tour buses dumping people off at the gate entrance. There was of course the standard tourist flea market in front of the entrance with people trying to sell you stuff. They were almost worse then in Istanbul and definitely not at all like the locals we had met in Goreme, just a few minutes away. When I pulled out my camera to take a picture of a camel standing beside the entrance, the owner (I presume) came running up demanding money to take a photo. Since he seemed quite serious and not all interested in talking about it, I just put the camera away... The photo wasn't worth it. Smaroop and I just kept walking past the museum, content that we had already seen more then enough rock caves for free in the past few days.

 

Our destination was a town about 5 kilometers away from Goreme called Ortahisar . After walking over the valley ridge from Goreme, and seeing great views of Rose Valley, we arrived in Ortahisar to check out their castle/citadel. After first stopping to check out a restaurant recommended by Lonely Planet, which we turned down because it was way overpriced and empty, we set out to explore the castle. Like the castle in Uchisar, there isn't a whole lot to explore inside the rock, but you were able to follow some stairs and cables which led all the way to the top and offered excellent panoramic views of the area. We could clearly see the Uchisar castle to our left and Mt Erciyes to our right.

 

Back in the town center, we stopped for some kebabs at a local shop which was about 75% cheaper then the restaurant we had looked in earlier. Being the off season, the town had an almost eerie feel to it. Very few people walking around, and while most places were open, you'd be hard pressed to tell that just by walking past the store fronts. With very few lights or neon to indicate a place was open, it wasn't until you actually looked inside and noticed a few people that you could tell they were open for business. Stuffed with kebabs, we ventured over to the local Dolmus (mini-bus) station to try and catch a ride back to Goreme, since neither of us really felt like walking the 5 kilometers again. After some initial language problems, we learned that there was no Dolmus from Ortahisar to Goreme. Instead, we'd have to take the Dolmus to Urgrup then from there we could catch a dolmus to Goreme. That's kind of like being in Ottawa and first going to Montreal to catch a bus to Toronto, though of course our distances are much smaller... ;)

 

Thinking it was just a language problem and not wanting to really get into it, we decided to just start walking. Almost immediately a man came up to us to ask us where we were going. Turns out he sort of overheard our conversation with the bus driver and indeed confirmed that there was no direct dolmus to Goreme.

 

Thinking some kind of scam was going on, I was naturally somewhat on guard but for some reason this guy seemed kind of legit. He claimed he was the local "tourist info" guide, but no idea if that was true. We took him up on his offer to join him for tea across the street from the dolmus station since it didn't look like we needed to hurry to catch a dolmus anyways. So, Smaroop, myself and the "local tourist info guy" all sat down for some tea and conversation. Turns out the dolmus driver was also on a tea break and sitting right beside us.

 

After some back and forth between our "guide" and the dolmus driver, our guide informed us that the dolmus driver would drive us part of the way to Goreme for a small amount of money. I still wasn't quite sure if there was a language problem, since it seemed unlikely that the dolmus was going to do a u-turn, drive part way back to Goreme to drop us off, then do another u-turn and continue on its way to Urgrup, but that's pretty much what happened in the end. (It wasn't quite a u-turn, we sort of made some stops in a local neighborhood, but it still got us closer).

 

Back at the hostel, Smaroop and I joined Becky and Micheal (the Australians from Sydney) for dinner in town before calling it a day back at the hostel, again hanging out in the lounge with all the other travelers. (If you haven't clued in yet, the Shoestring Pension has a great lounge to, well, lounge in and chat with other travelers.)

 

Sunday brought yet another cold and overcast day. After a very late start to the day, I decided to just wander around Goreme itself and explore a ridge line just above the town that I figured would offer great panoramic views of the city itself. I managed to find a trail that led up to a the ridge, which turned out to just be a huge plateau, so I guess Goreme is sort of in a mini-canyon, though it doesn't really feel like that. There is very little vegetation around the area, with the land being very dry and rocky.

 

As the clouds rolled through, I just walked along the ridge taking pictures of town until a very light rainfall passed through. As the rain let up, the clouds on the horizon started to break and the sun started to peak through. After a few minutes of watching the sun, I decided to turn around and head back down the path only to discover that an amazing rainbow had formed right behind me. It couldn't have been any more perfect, as it looked like the rainbow was coming right out of the middle of Goreme. I quickly got the camera out and snapped off a few shots that I think came out quite good. If ever there was time for the phrase "the right place at the right time", well that was it. (Or as the pro photographers say... "f/8 and be there...") As quickly as the rainbow appeared it then disappeared, leaving behind and amazing sunset that I watched for the next hour or so. The pictures don't do the sunset justice. The pinks and oranges that were cast over the rocks on the adjacent valley were amazing. Just standing up on the plateau, looking down on Goreme and out across the valley made me wonder just how amazing parts of Africa must be... Time will tell...

 

As I headed back through town, I stopped by the bus station to try and purchase my ticket to Antakya, but with "no electric" (ie: no power) that proved to be challenging. The power grid was going down throughout the day and since no one had any idea when it would be back up, I just decided to try and get my ticket later that night, when hopefully the "electric will be back".

 

That night, one of the girls from the hostel, Michelle, was celebrating her 29th birthday (go 29!) so just about everyone who was staying at the Shoestring headed out for dinner together to help her celebrate. With cake after dinner, and then drinks after that, including a second cake and surprise party put on by the hostel workers themselves, we all headed back to the hostel around 11.30pm since some people had late buses to catch that night out of Goreme.

 

Monday was pretty much a do-nothing day. Most of the people that I had hung out with the previous few days had moved on, though Becky and Micheal, as well as Smaroop, were still around. The weather had turned even colder and the snow had arrived. It kind of made me think of being up at Tahoe or someplace skiing related. It was solid snowfall with big soft snowflakes. It took a few hours for the ground to cool down, but eventually the snow started to accumulate and by late afternoon there was a few inches in areas.

 

About the only productive thing I did on Monday, other then eat, was to get another Turkish shave. Sadly, this shave wasn't as involved as the one I got in Istanbul. There was no flaming qutip, no facial massage. Just a straight razor blade shave and a cream with a very strong alcohol base to it. This was probably more of the locals shave since I doubt a local needs (or wants) all the showmanship that goes into a full Turkish shave. By 8pm that night, I was on the bus bound for Kayseri, Turkey about 1.5 hours away and my days in Goreme were over.

 

Kenny