Turkey – Day Nine – Goreme (Tuesday)

October 16, Guzeyurt and Ihlara

We woke up to an overcast but dry day, which was a big relief. We arranged to have our laundry done by the hotel as we wanted clean clothes on our trip to Cirali.

Andor gave us a deal on renting his minivan and driver (we thought we’d get the taciturn Russian but Andor wanted to get away and nap…business stress? He seemed a little frustrated that the Russian just lounged around smoking up the common room.) We recruited Kevin and two shell shocked Vancouverites named James and Jody who had just had a very long overnight bus ride from Istanbul. We handed them our L.P. to read up on their surprise excursion. Their eyes bugged when they read 16 kilometre hike! but we reassured them that we'd only be doing a few of those kilometres!

We first arranged to stop in the village of Guzelyurt which is a few kilometres away from Ihlara. The weather was partly cloudy, but it was warm, and the village itself was lovely. We bought a ticked for 5L each, which also got us into an underground city! It was not even a little bit developed, and had no 'this way out' signs, but was actually much cooler than Kaymakli. We wandered around there for a while, geting lost and found, and enjoyed having more light (it was less claustrophobic).

Only a few hundred metres away was the incredibly beautiful Church of St. Gregory, which had been transformed into a mosque which was still in use. The mosque was serene and beautiful, full of light and peace. The mihrab was lovely, as was the gate by which you entered the courtyard. What a perfect spot!

On the way out, a woman drove a few cows down the road, all of whom looked at us with some curiousity.

The drive to Ihlara was stunning: the clouds were dark and dramatic, and broken up by shafts of sunlight. The distant mountains had snow to their knees.

We descended into the valley, a knife-edged slice into the rolling prairie, along a twisting road. Steve and I had wanted to start at the village, where you can apparently slide into the valley from behind a hotel, but Andor said it was much better to begin at the tourist entrance at the top of the cliffs. Since the Canadians looked tired, we aquiesed.

The L.P. describes the entrace (the cost of which was included in our Guzelyurt ticket; we showed our ticked and were allowed through) to the Ihalra Valley as 300 knee-jarrig steps. There were 300 all right, but not very knee-jarring from our perspective. The Ihlara Valley has many rock-cut churches and at one time also supported a number of monestaries. The fertile river bottom was a great place for agriculture to support the monastaries, and it would have been virtually invisible from the prairie hills until you were right on top of it. The few churches we went into were very lovely, and the cliffs along the fairly gentle walk on the valley bottom were dramatic and stunning.

It was nice to see the valley was still being used for agriculture: we found pistachio nuts on the ground under trees, and there was evidence of all kinds of farming (including donkey poop on the pathway). There were all sorts of birds in the trees, and the air was full of song. The trees themselves were sometimes funny shapes: Kevin said the farmers would trim the new branches and store them as winter fodder in the remaining tree branches.

We ran into Adil, who was leading another group on the trail. He called out and greeted us, which was very nice. He looked like he was having a good time, and certainly had a much larger group than last time!

Kevin had brought along some pomegranates (naf, in Turkish, though often referred to as 'grenades' which you can kind of understand). We all shared in the pomegranates along the trail. By then it was sunny and almost hot, and the sun on the trees and water of the little creek was just lovely. We were so pleased we had decided to take this trip and Kevin too was glad that he had stuck around. The Canadians looked stunned but happy, and you can't ask for more after a bus trip of their magnitude. We relaxed in the sun and mostly gave up on scrambling up to the churches in favour of a leisurely walk along the river.

We met up with Andor at the Belisirma Village, where he took us to the Aslan Restaurant (literally, Lion Restaurant, which gave us nice Narnia frissons) for a fairly touristy but tasty lunch. Steve had a chicken casserole, and I had lamb, but we both eyed Kevin's yummy-looking trout. Must remember: balik for fish!

Andor had planned on having a good nap here, but was apparently too busy socializing. He looked happy.

Next stop was the rock-cut monestary at Selime (Sel-eem-ay). This too was included in our ticket to Guzelyurt. We walked up some stone ramps into a warren of caves that reminded us of Swiss cheese. I'm not a fan of the holey cheese, which may be why I found myself looking for a tuvelet. There was none at the monestary, so I walked down the road looking for Andor and the van to take me to a bathroom. He wasn't where he said he'd be waiting (maybe I was early?) so I asked a nice-looking boy in a school uniform if there was a bathroom I could use (thank goodness for a few words of Turkish: nerideh tuvalet, lutfen?). I was led to the school's bathroom, though it looked like school was out for the day. The squat toilet was clean enough, and fortunately I brought my own TP (you buy it in little pink scented packs like how we buy portable kleenex), but I found out that the water was turned off when school closed. That made flushing a little difficult! but I made do with the trickle that was still coming out of the tap.

I could hear the growing sounds of kids outside the bathroom building, and I decided to arm myself with a number of Canada flag pins to reward my rescuers. Not surprisingly, the one kid had told all his friends about the tourista in the tuvalet, and I was greeted by about five kids outside the bathroom. As I was handing out pins, another few came. I had thought it would be a nice genteel gift-giving, but these kids were monsters! They opened my hands to pry pins out, even the ones who already got a pin. Fortunately, Andor drove up just as Steve was walking down the road towards me. My saviours! I fled into the van, away from the piranhas. Apparently James had seen the kids milling around me and had told Steve I was in trouble... he didn't believe it, and I wasn't really, but those kids were overwhelming.

As the other people trickled into the van, Andor turned around to head back to Goreme. After traveling a hundred metres down the road, he stopped the van, got out, and pried a kid off the back bumper. After that, we were able to get on the road again. The drive back to Goreme was nice: we passed a few places we had seen on our previous tours, and were starting to get the lay of the land. The slanting sun on the snowy mountains and golden rolling hills was just beautiful.

We all agreed to pay Andor an extra 5L each as a tip, over and above the 25L per person which made up the 125L charge to have him drive us around all day. This compared pretty favourably to the 70L to rent the car plus 40L in gas to drive that distance. Gas is expensive in Turkey: some 2.8L per LITRE.

Steve and Kevin hiked up to Sunset Point on the cliff's edge, while I hung out on the internet in the nice warm common room (and had Pakize walk on the keyboard). While we were away, the Russian had hooked up a tiny wood stove and its chimney, which made everything quite cosy. To our dismany, the heat was not yet on, and didn't look to be on by nightfall. When we inquired about our laundry, we found out it hadn't dried in the intermittent sunshine. As we were leaving for dinner at Dibek, the Russian's wife was spreading it around the common area near the stove to dry. We decided not to be embarassed about having our damp undies on display and headed off for dinner.

Before dinner, we stopped by the Nevsihir bus company to buy our 8:30am ticket to Konya. After much discussion, we had decided to spend the afternoon in Konya and then take a night bus to Antalya, rather than having eight hours of travel during the day. It was sad to think about leaving Cappadocia, but exciting to be on the move again.

At Dibek, we were shown to an upstairs room which ended up being our own personal dining room: it was lovely and romantic, but we were left alone to the point where we thought we might have been forgotten! The claypot dinner was just amazing, and this time the pot was actually broken to get dinner out. The mezes were delicious, and Steve tried some raki. Raki is a liquor like ouzo (meaning liquorice flavoured and just as gross) and Steve learned quickly that water is required as a raki mixer.

On the way out, we saw the tired Canadians settled down for dinner where we ate last night. We wished a little that we had been out in the main area and socializing, but having dinner in a private room of a 400 year old converted stone house isn't exactly shabby, either.

The walk back up the hill to the Panorama Hotel was a little on the chilly side, but there was no rain. We pet Pakize a few more times and watched the Russian imbue our laundry with the fine aroma of cigarettes. Oh well.