Cappadocia

Cappadocia rocks. In both the literal geological sense as well as in the figurative sex and drugs sense. Not that we did any of that there.

We took the overnight bus to Göreme, which cost about 50 lira (or 25 euros) per person. We took Metro, which was a pretty decent bus company - one of the best we were to encounter - and we got in on time, then checked into our hostel, the wonderful Star Cave Pension. We were treated to a delicious Turkish breakfast (hard boiled egg, toast with butter, jam, and honey, tomato and cucumber with cheese, and, of course, tea) then led to our cavernous room. I speak not in hyperbole here, gentle reader, but in verity: we stayed in a cave. You see, that's kinda the thing to do in Cappadocia - go around caves, stay in caves, look at caves from the outside... And we had a whole cave just to ourselves; we actually booked three beds in a six bed dorm, but never had anyone else in the place and even had our own bathroom, plus free breakfast every morning... all for 10 lira/person. That's 5 euros a night! The best deal this side of the Bosporus.

We roused ourselves in time to climb a nearby hill to watch the sunset and then hop over to what became our living room: Fat Boys bar. Why did this become our home away from home? For the simple reasons that it had both sheesha and Risk: The Game of World Domination™. We spent hours upon hours at this place, literally slaughtering each other and taking the fate of the world in our hands, all over cups of tea. We even expanded our consumption a couple times, including a memorable "American Night" where we feasted on nachos, burgers, and beer... again while pitting tiny Irkutsk against the heathen armies of those Yakustkian infidels. A foul wind often blew from the west as my socialist Red Army marched steadily upon Asher's pesky yellow bastards and Kate's peace-loving, annoyingly high-minded green party. I think everyone won at least one game... but I dominated on the overall scoreboard, despite what either of those other cheating cheaters would lead you to believe.

But despite the indecent amount of time we spent in Fat Boys, we also did manage to make it back to our hostel to watch some movies from our hard drive on Asher's (unbroken) laptop. First off, we watched Casino Royale, which definitely got our blood pumping, then we watched Battlefield Earth: A Saga of the Year 3000. THIS MOVIE CHANGED OUR LIVES. I don't want to ruin it for anyone who has not seen this cinematic masterpiece, so I'll just leave you with a few choice, vaguely Turret's-esque quotes (like "ratbrain!" or "I do what I can!" or maybe "Do you want lunch?!?!") plus this clip of Asher performing the movie's signature line in one of Cappadocia's rock formations.



Seriously though, Cappadocia is beautiful. The natural splendor of everything is absolutely, wondrously mindblowing. And it's not just the fairy chimneys, but all sorts of rock formations and underground churches, not to mention stunning canyons of varying shades of cotton-candy pink and daffodil yellow. We first explored the recommended Open Air Museum, which was pretty cool, but overrun by hordes of package tourists who didn't seem too interested in sharing (we were actually scolded by a guide for blocking a little bit of light for about three seconds when we entered a chapel that was constantly occupied by tour groups, his being the present reigning party).

We decided maybe it was best to get away from the Göreme sights a bit and expand our horizons as Cappadocia is a whole region, not just a town. So we booked our own guided tour of the surroundings. Things did not get off to an auspicious start. First off, we thought we were going to miss it as we forgot to set the alarm in the morning and woke up about five minutes before we were due to meet... luckily, this just so happened to have fallen on the daylight savings changeover day, so we still had an hour to eat breakfast and relax in. Then we picked up the rest of the group, most of whom were all going to the same university in Turkey on study abroad programs... and all of whom were ridiculously late. We seriously had to wait about 45 minutes for one girl - I don't know why they didn't leave without her. And they were all constantly lagging as the tour continued. Anyway, we started off with a couple outlooks that were less than stellar and the guide did explain - albeit in heavily accented, nigh unintelligible English - how the chimneys were formed before we continued on to the coolest part of the tour, which were the underground cities that dated to about the fifth century. These are incredibly intricate windings of tunnels and staircases where you really have to know your way around. The stairs from level three, for example, may only lead to level six, but those from level six only go to level one, and those from one go to two and seven, etc... This was done to purposefully confuse attackers and get them lost in the passageways. So definitely a good place to go with a guide, especially when he pointed out things like the air shafts that descended all 15 or so levels in a straight line, or the place they hung criminals by their wrists. We also checked out a couple other vaguely interesting places including where they shot some of the Tatooine stuff for Star Wars, but all in all, the tour was a little subpar and it was only another round of killing each other in board games that put us back on the right track.

But the next day was when we finally discovered Cappadocia by going on a hike. We walked to the Open Air Museum, then continued just a another hundred meters or so further into Pigeon Valley which took us on a rambling wander over hill and under dale, past enticing carvings and yawning crevices. We climbed some cliffs, slide down a mountainside, and eventually stumbled upon a few rows of cliff dwellings that were at least as good as the Open Air Museum - not to mention free and completely empty. It was like playing Indiana Jones. And there are literally hundreds of these places, which range from small, two or three room dwellings, to sprawling five-story ruins, to single room chapels complete with thousand-year-old paint fragments.

Clearly, we had to do this again. So the next day, we set off for unsupervised jaunt number two, this time winding through the Rose Valley. More of the same incredible awesomeness. The history is just everywhere, and it's combined with natural beauty, combined with light hiking, combined with constant references to Battlefield Earth... The highlight of the day was definitely our last stop, which was in an unsuspecting little hole in the rock wall, which opened into an magnificent church built inside of the cliff. This place was beautiful and, as you see here, all to ourselves. The act of getting to "find" and explore places like this on your own cannot be overstated and it really does make me rethink modern ideas of conservation and preservation - do we really need controlled environments for everything? I know I certainly got much more out of our aimless ambling then any of the on-the-beaten-path stuff we did.

Actually, this would be a pretty good time to launch into a little discussion/treatise on preservation vs. conservation, and provide me with another opportunity to slide in another photo or two... but I think I'm going to save that one for another day when we've actually gotten caught up on the blog. But at least I stalled long enough to slip one picture in...

ANYWAY, that was really about all we did in Göreme, which could be summed up by simply saying - we had an all around awesome time, even though I never did get to try one of the local pottery kebabs. But Battlefield Earth more than made up for any such disappointments. And we were, in fact, quite torn on whether or not to leave Cappadocia when we did; we almost threw away our bus tickets to Pammukale (40 lira, about 8 hours) and stayed on for a few more nights. Frankly, we should have, but that's a story for the next blog...