Days 357-367: Cappadocia
Konya, Goreme, Antakya
Mostly a slide show of the gorgeous area known as Cappadocia sandwiched between brief stops in Konya and Antakya.
Any tall travelers will appreciate the significance of this picture taken on a Turkish bus. Sweet luxury!
Konya is a large, modern city full of friendly Turks but absolutely no beer. It’s chief attraction is the Mevlanna shrine, home of the dervish order (of whirling fame). Despite having what may be the worst value accomodation in Turkey, it was a worthwile stop-over to break up the long trip to Cappadocia. Few things can bother a tired sleeper more than a hyper-sensitive motion light outside the window flickering all night and a hotel staff that bangs on your door at midnight so they can turn a valve in your squalid bathroom.
The turquoise tiled tower at the Mevlana shrine/museum in Konya. 
Dervish tombs inside the Mevlana. The size of the turban indicates spiritual rank.
The area called Cappadocia is a magical place. The surreal landscape is full of conical volcanic tufts called “fairy chimneys”. If these natural wonders weren’t cool enough on their own, people have been burrowing houses and churches into these fairy chimneys for a millenium. The whole area looks as riddled with holes as swiss cheese and the homes have a distinct Flinstones vibe.
We stayed in the town of Goreme, which is full of fairy chimneys riddled with dwellings, cobble stone streets, and friendly dogs.
We spent nine days here (the longest we’ve been in one place in over a year) and never ran out of valleys to explore. When we were giving our barking dogs (that means tired feet to the uninitiated) a chance to breathe, we learned backgammon and played for hours. Turkey has incridibly beautiful inlaid backgammon boards that Marcus desperately wanted to purchase. But we found out that they are available on Ebay for almost nothing and wouldn’t cost nearly as much to ship home.
Cappadocian swiss cheese hillsides.
Goreme is a dangerous place to be an ATM card. The only local ATM machine devoured other poor travellers cards regularly and it had notes warning future users. Fortunately, we were warned to grab our card within the 2 seconds it was available (it eats the card for “security” reasons if you’re not fast enough).
Inside one of the cave houses. This one had a nice southern exposure, a pleasant den, and fruit trees. People still live in some of these.
Somehow we forgot to mention the best drink they have in Turkey: cherry juice. You can buy it anywhere in a can or huge box and the stuff is heavenly. (Go for the “Cappy” brand and try not to read it as Crappy). Speaking of beverages, Marcus uttered the unthinkable during breakfast one morning. While drinking a cup of Nescafe, he said the words, “That’s good.” May the coffee gods smite him where he stands!
Inside one of the more rudimentary Byzantine era cave churches.
Frescos in the “dark church” at the Goreme open air museum. Just loaded with biblical scenes.
Wavey, rose-colored hills in one of the valleys.
Interesting erosion pattern on one of the valley walls.
When it wasn’t raining, the weather was a terrific Spring-like upper 60s. Unfortunately, the insects took this as a cue to spring to life en masse. One day, we had swarms of tiny flies that attempted to enter every facial orifice and were not the least detered by DEET. The very next day was flying ant day and Marcus was grazed in the eyeball by one. Ug.
Marc had to take extreme defensive measures against the swarms of tiny flies near the Devrent Valley.
Locals attending to one of Cappadocia’s many vineyards. The wine wasn’t too bad either.
Zemi Valley – which means Love Valley, and we had a pretty good idea why.
More neat hills.
Looking up Sword Valley full of blossoming trees.
Looking down Sword Valley with a few dwellings visible.
In addition to digging homes and churches into fairy chimneys, some folks went so far as to dig entire cities underground. The underground city at Kaymakli was enormous and at least 5 of the levels were open to tourists. It went many stories deep, but somehow the airflow was good enough that it didn’t get too stuffy. How’d they go to the bathroom though?
Way down under at the Kaymakli underground city.
The fruit and nut trees in Goreme were bursting with blossoms.
We ran across many cool churches that weren’t on the main trails. The carved ceiling of this one was quite neat.
Another cool church we stumbled across during a hike. This huge building was carved right into solid stone. This one came complete with meditating hippies and candles for ambiance.
We took an overnight bus to Antakya. We’ve pretty much written off getting sleep on overnight buses, but it sure doesn’t help when the only two infants on the entire bus are seated right behind you and the only two other people not sleeping are their moms (sitting in the same two seats).
Antakya is known for it’s archeological museum with the most stunning mosaics we’ve seen. Somehow the artists manage to use stones of various sizes and colors to produce shading that gives the mosaic the apearance of 3D. From a distance, many of these would be mistaken for paintings.
This mosaic had Oceanus and some remarkably cool fish.
Some of the other mosaics were more odd. This one showed Pan along with The Evil Eye being attacked by all manner of animals and weapons.
The Evil Eye is actually a good thing. Most of the homes and places of business in the area had a large, blue Evil Eye mounted somewhere to ward off evil. Even vehicles had Evil Eyes mounted in them.
On the way out of the country we picked up some drinks and Turkish Delight for the road. Even though the guy at the sweets counter didn’t speak any English, he invited us to the back of the shop and showed us the room where his dad was making the tasty Turkish Delight. It was a sweet send off from Turkey; we will definitely return.
Tags: Turkey
Kelly & Marcus
April 27th, 2006 at 7:23 pm
When in Tahoe, and can’t remember Kelly and Marcus’s web site, what do you do, you Google. You two came up “2nd” on a google search list. Pretty impressive.
Good seeing you.
– Bob –
April 28th, 2006 at 7:10 am
Hey Bob! What do you mean we’re only second?!? 🙂 Glad we’re easily found.
April 28th, 2006 at 7:14 am
The landscapes are surreal. Really awesome stuff. Don’t tell Hollywood.
I hope you avoided that masked man…
April 28th, 2006 at 11:26 am
Hey,that’s cool. I tried Googling “Kelly and Marcus” and you came up second behind some footballer. I tried “Marcus and Kelly” and you were god knows where (there’s a message someplace in that). You get to first place with “Kelly and Marcus travel”. This may seem trivial, but now I have an easy answer for all those relatives who can’t seem to remember your blog address.
April 28th, 2006 at 6:04 pm
That evil eye hasn’t seen the worst of it yet…as soon as Pan releases the dreading Butt Fish it’s gonna be curtains for sure…
April 29th, 2006 at 6:07 am
Interestig about the Google search – Kelly & Marcus came up first when I tried it….
Really interesting blog pics – thanks!
Still waiting for your nephew to arrive…
April 30th, 2006 at 10:52 am
Hola Gitanos,
Kelly, your aunt Joanne wears the same amulet every day of the week. It’s a blue evil eye which a friend bought for her in Ankara. The charm [a glass eye wide-open and mounted on lucky blue glass] goes back to the snake-haired goddess Medusa. “If you look into her eye with evil in your heart,” says the legend, “the evil will be returned upon you and you will be turned into stone.”
Joanne and I share your spirit of adventure, but SHE does not share your wanderlust and youthful vigor. So, we will be traveling about in South America for 2 months (mid-June to mid August), not 2 years. I would choose 2 years for OPENERS. In any event, our plans are indefinite at the moment with 3 exceptions: dental work, Cochabamba in Bolivia and Patagonia in Argentina. If you’re drifting through Bolivia in that time frame, maybe we could hook-up with you and Marcus. It’d be fun, so let’s keep each other posted about itineraries as we wander forward into the unknown.
Love,
Walter & Joanne
P.S. Tell Marcus that I heard about an astrophysicist in Montana who’s contracted a strange disease because he forget to wear his evil eye amulet to a conference – so, it looks like there may be a job opening for an astrophysicist in the great state of Montana in the near future.
May 1st, 2006 at 10:42 am
Wow.
Turkey is our favorite so far of your travels. Jean and I can’t wait to go there some day!
k.