Cappadocia

Part of the open air museum

It started with a mammoth trip across Turkey - getting up at 7, catching the tram to the airport, driving to the ferry to cross the Bosphorous then driving a good 8 or 9 hours to Göreme in Cappadocia, arriving at about 10:30. Cappadocia is dominated by a bizarre landscape often referred to as "Lunar" - usually by people who have never been to the moon. In fact the mass of Fairy Chimneys, also known as Hooroos, are created by erosion - the underlying soft stone (in this case I believe it's a kind of sandstone) is topped with a thin layer of harder rock, in this case volcanic in origin. As the ground erodes, chunks of the hard rock stay in place and protect the softer rock underneath, creating spires, pillars and other funky shapes. And being nice, free-standing formations of mainly soft stone, "olden times" people liked to dig their buildings into them. In this case it was mainly christians around the Byzantine era. The Unesco listed Göreme open air museum is in fact largely a huge complex of churches. The place was jam packed with tour groups when I was there so I have to admit my experience was less than Salubrious. The so-called "dark church" was impressive though, so called because it only has one small window. This means, with little light getting into it, the frescoes are still stunningly vibrant, or "livid" as the information board described it. I suppose if I were a fresco I'd be angry too if I were smeared onto a wall that never saw the sun, but after 1500 years I think I would have gotten over it.

Inside a church I was "allowed" to photograph

Anyway, photos were not allowed of the church interior, though if you Google image search "Dark Church Cappadocia" you'll get some quite pretty pictures of it. Also, my finger may or may not have "accidently" slipped onto the shutter button of my camera as it was coincidently pointing at a fresco I happened to be looking at, so if I'm ever showing you these pictures in person make sure you look away if I'm so careless as to show this one.

Çavuşin complex

After the open air museum I took a long walk to Çavuşin, the closest town to Göreme. Here I got to play Indiana Jones again as there is a partially collapsed town cut into the rock face above the modern settlement which you can simply clamber around like you own the place. And to be honest, it's more than a little bit dangerous if you're an idiot adventure seeker like me - many of the rooms and chambers are only accessible by clambering around steep ledges and up steep slopes covered in loose, fine sand from the deteriorating stone. I also managed to aquire some wounds, scraping my leg on the rock. Finally that day I wondered around the most scenic fairy chimney area, getting myself covered in even more dusty sand.

Some fairy chimneys

This morning I got up at the barbaric hour of 5:30 to catch a balloon. Cappadocia is famous for its balloon rides - it has stunning landscapes and for most of the year there is perfect wind conditions for ballooning. This morning was touch and go however. After waiting until long after sunrise (we were supposed to see the sunrise from the balloon) the wind finally dipped to an optimal 15 kmh.
And, well, it was a balloon ride. Spectacular. But I have to let the pictures do the talking.
All said and done, I think I could have spent a lot more time in Cappadocia. I only saw a fraction off all the valleys, fairy chimneys and rock-cut settlements in the area.