Overnight Bus to Fairyland

Yesterday was another great but very full day. The overnight bus experience was as good as could be expected, and we were picked up by our friendly Airbnb host at the bus station. The Cappadocia area is an incredible place and I can see why it’s one of Turkey’s greatest hits.

Going back to Sunday, we changed buses in Antalya. The bus station was huge (bigger than many airports) and out in the middle of nowhere. There were two terminals and first we went to the wrong one where David’s knife got confiscated as we went through security. He was of course devastated, but we couldn’t get it back even when we immediately turned around and explained we were leaving. We’ve gone through countless security checks and his knife has never been a problem, so it was bad luck that we got someone who took his job very seriously! He also realized that he’d left his new sunglasses on the bus, so he wasn’t a happy camper by this point.

After dumping our bags at the left luggage office, we decided to take a tram into downtown to look around and have supper as we had over three hours. Something as simple as buying a ticket from a machine for the tram was a

fairly stressful experience, and the security guard wasn’t all that helpful. After we had managed to buy one ticket but not get our change back, he told us that the tram would be free in five minutes. Not sure why he didn’t tell us that in the first place!

We walked around a busy shopping area looking for somewhere interesting to eat - I was hoping for something other than kebabs and pide. We stopped to watch some very low level gambling - people trying to win 40 lira by knocking over two water bottles with a soccer ball. Topher forked over his lira (about 25 cents) and missed, and Hugh was about to take a turn (much to the delight of the crowd - he had his head patted and cheeks touched several times as we watched) when the whole thing evaporated because someone spotted the police arriving. We eventually gave up trying to find anything other than kebab, and had a quick supper before heading back to the bus station.

The bus made fewer stops overnight, but only the boys managed to get much sleep. At some point in the middle of the night we stopped at a rest stop that had lots of interesting things to buy but we were too tired to look. It was very different from North American rest stops - more like a small indoor market.

When we got to Goreme shortly after 7 am (the buses and trains here seem to always run on time) we were met by our host and taken to our Airbnb in the

nearby town of Ortahisar. Both the surrounding area and where we’re staying are indescribable. It’s somewhat similar to the badlands of Alberta, but with caves carved into the soft volcanic tufa, which is hardened ash (see photo below). The entire area is a World Heritage Site.

The Airbnb is a small hotel with a kitchen and living room that we can use, but no one else is staying here so we have the place to ourselves (photos on following pages). The bedrooms are actual caves! We have a great view of the “castle” in the centre of town and the cave houses along the sides of the small valley that we are in (middle and bottom photos on page 143). There is also a very pregnant cat and the English neighbours have three friendly dogs so the kids are super happy and quickly made themselves at home. Our host made us feel very welcome and started a fire for us, made tea and gave us a big plate of fresh pastries. He then went to pick up our rental car for us while we relaxed and napped next to the fire.

Topher and Hugh eventually went to explore our town and find some groceries. By the time we had lunch and got going, it was getting on for 2 pm. Our driveway was blocked as the English neighbours were having some rubbish removed so we visited with them and the boys played with the dogs while we waited. They are retired and now live here full time, and they said the boys could take their dogs for a walk any time.

We weren’t feeling too ambitious so we decided to go to the underground city at Kaymaklı. It was amazing, although again no interpretation, and we all had fun exploring the enormous network of underground caves (see model of site above) that were once home to an estimated 3500 people, we think early Christians escaping persecution but we’ll have to read more about it. Hugh has read some of the books on Cappadocia at our Airbnb while the rest of us napped so he knew more than we did! The pictures (opposite and on following page) don’t really do the site justice. The caves are well worth a visit if you’re not claustrophobic!

There was the usual overpriced tourist market of souvenirs at the entrance, but the sellers were less aggressive than we’ve seen elsewhere so we actually took some time to look around. We were on our way back to the car when an unassuming-looking carpet shop owner invited us in for tea - no pressure, you don’t have to buy anything - and since we had nothing better to do with the

rest of our afternoon we accepted. He was very warm and genuine and gave us a nice lesson on the different types of carpets and the kids had fun helping him unroll dozens and dozens of carpets. He kept calling Hugh “Hoo”, and sometimes “”Hoo Hoo”, which might be his new nickname.

Not surprisingly, we ended up with not one but four carpets! Okay two of the carpets were cheap machine-made freebies that he gave to the boys, which they are absolutely thrilled with. First we bought a runner for our upstairs hallway, which is a beautiful embroidered kilim from the Rah Rah area of Turkey and Iraq. On our way out Topher spotted a large kilim that he liked on the floor outside at the entrance to the storage area next door. It was dirty and heavily worn so the seller joked that he’d sell it to us for $100 Canadian (that guy could do exchange rates very quickly in his head). Topher was very keen so we ended up paying $50 cash and the seller was very happy. I’m not sure our carpet buying days are over as I still want a giant kilim pillow! The prices are very good, even if we’re probably paying inflated tourist prices. We may go to his other store tonight in Goreme, or it can wait until Istanbul.

For supper we really wanted to find something other than fast food so we drove to Uchisar (where the photo opposite was taken) to eat at a restaurant that sounded good. The menu wasn’t all that different from some of the better kebab houses but the food was very good and Topher’s “village meatballs” (served with chunks of garlic bread smothered in yogurt sauce) were particularly tasty. We also tried a local dessert which was caramelized dried apricots stuffed with walnuts.

Today we woke up fairly early after a very good sleep in the cave bedrooms - very quiet and dark. We had a comfortable king-sized bed, but unfortunately it came with a 9 year old boy in the middle.

Our first stop of the day was the Niagara Falls of the Cappadocia region, the Goreme open air museum, which is where we could actually visit many of the larger cave structures (see site map above, and photos opposite and on following page). The majority of the buildings turned out to be churches, monasteries and nunneries from the 8th to 11th centuries. The site is recognized as a Workd Heritage Site because of its impressively well-preserved Byzantine cave architecture and wall frescoes. I think the everyday houses are not considered as important, as they didn’t bother putting signs up for them, although we saw what looked like many of them. We shared an audio guide, which almost started World War III, but we eventually worked it out.

After buying a few souvenirs and refusing a camel ride ($15 for a five minute photo op), we headed into the town of Goreme, which is even more touristy than Niagara Falls, to try and find the Chinese noodle place recommended by our English neighbours. We somehow found it with very sketchy directions.

We all enjoyed watching them make the noodles by hand in front of us (photo above) and they were tasty too. The kids were very happy and are talking about working in a noodle restaurant someday.

We then drove to Ürgüp and stopped to admire the three fairy chimneys there, and the views across a huge valley (top photos on following page). Fairy chimneys are tall hoodoos with a rock on top, and many of them have cave houses inside. At a roadside stand we had tea and shared a gozleme, which is a fried spinach and cheese pie that we watched being made - the woman used a long, thin rolling pin to roll the dough into very thin rounds that were almost transparent.

We then continued on our tour by heading to Avanos, which our host had recommended visiting for the “bottle shop”. His English isn’t great so we weren’t sure what that meant, but it turned out that the town is a centre of pottery production. We toured a couple of the pottery “museums”, i.e. stores,

and watched a pottery demonstration using a kick wheel, which was interesting (bottom left photo opposite). The stores themselves were fun to visit as they were in caves and over several levels. One had a very creepy hair museum, which were several rooms full of locks of hair donated by visitors over the last 40 years (bottom right photo opposite). It certainly is a good gimmick to get people into your shop. At another store I bought some tiles which I’m sure were probably made somewhere else but they are very pretty.

We had more snacks (ice cream and a fried pastry similar to a churro soaked in syrup), picked up some groceries for supper, then stopped at a housewares store to buy David a pencil for his math homework and found some bargain souvenirs. It seems like we’ve done a lot of eating and shopping today. We have had a quiet night at home (photo above taken from our Airbnb) so we’ll be ready for more tomorrow!