Day who knows; it’s Cappadocia!

Cappadocia. Wow.

I don’t even know where to start! We ended up spending 4 days here, and stayed in three different hotels. A really nice one thanks to Greg and Pryia from Team Never Look Yak, a strange one thanks to booking.com and a brand new one thanks to driving around. The last one, the owners had opened that same day, took pictures with us, and gave us the room keytag as a souvenir. We wish you the best of luck with your endeavor! We’ll be putting our 5-star review on TripAdvisor soon, but if anyone is in Goreme, visit the Whisper Guest House : http://www.tripadvisor.com/Hotel_Review-g297983-d8474897-Reviews-Whisper_Guest_House-Goreme_Cappadocia.html

Given the amount of time we spent here, this will be a picture-based update… let’s see if I can get it to work! This update is purely from my Windows Phone pictures, so apologies. Once I can get pics off my camera and converted from RAW I’ll put those up too. A the moment, enjoy these…

A workshop where the local master craftsman was carving gourds to make lights – his sales-lady was Italian so there was an instant connection there!

A view of Cappadocia, specifically the northern part.  

A dug-out church. Very cool, as you need flashlights to explore this one. No artificial lighting, and no health & safety. At one point, there’s a hole that goes down 10+m with no warning or barriers. Still have no idea what’s at the bottom!   

“Love Valley”. Or cock-chasm…. call it what you want, but the erosion here has made for some pretty interesting structures. 

GOZLEME! If you ever goto Turkey, drive to Derinkuyu underground city. Just outside you will find this lady making Gozleme with cheese, mixed veggies or meat. OMG. This was amazing. One of the best things I’ve ever eaten. Kept trying gozleme in Turkey looking for something similar, but nothing was ever the same. If you go there, please pass my regards! 

Derinkuyu underground city. You can only explore 10% of it, and we were both tired by then. It’s massive. Utterly amazing. Another must-see.    Church-school in Derinkuyu underground city.   Tunnel leading down – note the round door. It can only be opened/closed from the inside. Once closed, the tunnel just looks like dead end rock.   At this point we had to do laundry… We came up with a very effective way to dry the laundry, any garment would dry in minutes…   Hot air ballooning. Avoid Atlas balloons (butterfly is good as are a few others). Ask where their designated take-off spot is before booking; only a few are allowed to take off from the love valley.      and finally, an extract from a souk (market) 

After leaving Cappadocia, we headed for Dogubayazit in Eastern Turkey. Once there we found the first place to stop and crash for the night. In the meantime, we noticed a LOT of military vehicles patrolling the roads in front… odd. At that point, we met a friendly Iranian-American smuggler. He offered to show us a good place to have dinner, which we happily obliged, and helped us order. Over dinner, he recounted tales of how strict/dangerous Iran is… He did seem a little paranoid as we encountered none of the issues he warned us of, but then again, we weren’t smuggling brand new mercs into the country!

What he did tell us, which was news to us, was that Turkey had bombed the Kurds in Iraq the day before, and as the flights left from near where we were; and that there was a heavy Kurd presence in the village, there had been repercussions. Apparently ten cars had been petrol bombed only hours before our arrival. Oops! That night, we made sure to park bluebird right up next to the hotel… if they wanted to burn her, they would need to burn the whole hotel!

Onwards we go! Next update… border with Iran… and Iran…

m.