Day 23: Tour 1 of Cappadocia

We loaded onto a bus in the morning and headed out for a day tour of the Cappadocia region. First stop was a beautiful hike through Rose Valley. We walked by caves where pigeon nests, meticulously carved by the people of Cappadocia, were visible inside. We learned in Egypt that the Egyptians want to get rid of pigeons and pigeon droppings that ruin the beautiful colors on the temples…The people of Cappadocia, on the other hand, used pigeon eggs to make paint for the frescoes on the cave walls! And it wasn’t just pigeon eggs that were valuable. Droppings were used for fertilizer. And pigeons were used Harry Potter style to send messages to one another! I never imagined pigeons were useful…
Pigeon nests (the small holes inside the big caves).

We were able to climb up into one of the caves we passed in Rose Valley. Paul took the tough route and scaled the front of the rock to the entry way above. I took the easy route and walked up an easy hill to an entry way at the back. It was a fun stop! As we neared the end of our hike through Rose Valley we saw a lot of locals working and farming in the fields and stopped for fresh squeezed pomegranate-grapefruit juice. Delicious.
Me in Rose Valley.
Paul climbing into a cave.
Us in the doorway to the cave.
Fresh juice. Yum.

The bus met us at the end of our hike and took us to our next stop: Monk’s Valley AKA Pasabag. There we explored a few good examples of Cappadocia’s famous fairy chimneys and our guide explained the strange erosion process that was responsible for forming the unique shapes. We were even able to climb up into a few of the caves carved into the fairy chimneys.
Us in the land of fairy chimneys.
More fairy chimneys.
Climbing up to caves in the fairy chimneys.
Crawling through caves.

After we had our fill of fairy chimneys, the tour group was taken to a pottery shop in Avanos (like lambs to the slaughter). We learned all about Turkish pottery. The shop was located in a cave, which we learned kept a perfect temperature for making pottery out of clay harvested from a nearby river. We saw one of the masters work the kick turn pottery wheel and were offered delicious Turkish apple tea…DÉJÀ VU (Jordanian mosaics, Egyptian carpets…the script is the same everywhere). We drank the apple tea and it was all over. Time to buy pottery. We were taken into the display area, which was separated into two rooms: the masterpiece room and the “other” room. Of course I had eyes only for the masterpieces. And every time I admired a piece, the salesman following about 20 feet behind snatched it away and took it to a special table to keep it safe for me. Paul put his bargaining face on. And in the end we bought a lovely bowl painted in the shop’s family design…While Paul was settling the bill, our salesman called me over and told me to pick a bowl from the “other” room as a gift. He told me Paul was a hard bargainer and he was sorry he had to “break my heart” when he refused to accept Paul’s offer for one of the other pieces I had been eyeing. It was a nice gesture, and even if it means we overpaid for our “masterpiece,” I think we both left the shop happy with our purchase. It will be on display in our shoebox of an apartment this fall (our mosaic and bowl purchases took off a few square feet)…
Master at work on the kickturn wheel.

Handpainted pottery.

We had a nice lunch and then it was back to actual sights. We stopped at the amazing underground city of Kaymakli (used by early Christians to hide from persecution). An entire city underground! Even stables for horses! We climbed down, down, down into the earth passing kitchens, wineries, churches, and air shafts that looked as though they descended for miles. Our guide told us that, based on the length of the air shafts, archeologists estimate that further excavations will show the cities descends hundreds of feet further than the area we were able to explore on our tour. It was impressive!



Our last stop was a brief wine tasting (I don’t think the Cappadocia wineries realize that more tastings lead to more purchasing…no one bought wine) and a beautiful lookout point over Pigeon Valley.
Us at the lookout point.

We walked into town and had a GREAT dinner at one of the restaurants. Our waiter was so friendly and even made us delicious Turkish coffee to end a delicious meal.