Cappadocia

We hopped on a quick flight from Istanbul to Kayseri airport and the Cappadocia region of Turkey. This region is well known for its hot air balloons and moon-like landscape, and we hoped for good weather to experience it all. As we arrived after dark, the following day was going to be our first real views of the area. We woke up to catch sunrise from our hotel terrace as that’s when the balloons go up on an average day. It was every bit as stunning as we imagined, with hundreds of balloons floating through the valley over the unique rock landscapes. ,Our hotel had a terrace view overlooking the city and the balloons, and up there we met another couple who was traveling through Turkey. They had come from Istanbul before as well and informed us that though the balloons went up the day before, it had been very dusty/windy and not a great view. Prior to that they balloons actually hadn’t gone up for 6 days due to high winds. This made us feel fortunate that we caught them on our first day. However, the 5:30 am wakeup call was a bit early so after sunrise we headed back to nap for a couple hours until breakfast. We had the usual breakfast spread (HUGE) with cucumbers, tomatoes, olives, cheeses, breads, dips, eggs, potatoes, and tea.

We have realized at this point that the enormous Turkish breakfasts usually fill us up, so much so that Nicole often can’t eat lunch because she’s still so full. We had plans to do some hiking through nearby valleys as we were excited to see the unique landscape. However, we were repeatedly asked about ATV tours, hot air balloon rides, horseback riding, the “Green/Red” tour loop - and we quickly realized this area reminded us a lot of Salento in Colombia…..set up for tourists and not much else. While it’s wonderful to have all of the activity options, we have found these areas usually lack the local feel and authentic-ness we crave as we try to learn more about people and their culture. We avoided these activities and went hiking as planned, with our first day leading us through White Valley, Love Valley (where we got a real kick out of the rock formations that gave the valley it’s name), and to the "castle" atop the town of Uçhisar, the highest point in Cappadocia. We returned home via Pigeon Valley just before the rain began.

All along the way on our hike we passed the amazing stone structures that were, and some still are, inhabited by those who carved out homes in the unique rock formations to live thousands of years ago. After the first half of the hike we ran across a man selling fresh squeezed orange/grapefruit juice as we exited the first canyon. We bought a couple and sat to chat with him about business and tourism in the area before heading up to the castle. En-route to the castle, we passed a pen full of camels - riding them yet another major tourist attraction in the area. On this point in particular we have some issues….as we have seen/heard of so much mal-treatment of animals in major tourist areas we have both decided that riding a camel/elephant/even horses in many areas is not something that we have any desire to do. While these are amazing creatures to see, we don’t want to accidentally be part of the harming or damaging of these animals.

When we left the castle we headed home through pigeon valley. The trails seemed to be well defined so we didn’t check our trail reports along the way until we found ourselves facing a cliff that we could see the trail on the other side but not reach. Thinking we must be missing something, we wandered the cliffs edge looking for an attempted way down. As we got to a slightly less steep cliff ledge and started trying to inch down, we heard shouting from the other side saying “NO, NO, NO!! You have to go back and around - we made same mistake.” We felt very fortunate as they probably saved us from at least one broken bone. As we finished the hike, we stopped for one of our daily Turkish coffees before meeting back up with the couple we had met that morning (Nadja & Gabriel - from Germany and Argentina originally but living in Australia and Denmark currently) and went to dinner. We tried the “clay pot kebabs”, which were highly advertised in the area. While our waiter was fantastic and we had a ton of fun, the actual food was average at best - once again the tourist hype got us. Hakki, our waiter, made Nicole do the actual clay pot separation, standing at the head of the table and hitting the clay pot with a knife until it finally breaks the top off to pour out the meat. After dinner, we headed over to the local bottle shop, grabbed beers and wine, and headed up to our rooftop terrace with Nadja and Gabriel. (Our overpriced box of Turkish delights may have also made an appearance). We had a wonderful evening and we were sad to see them departing the next day.

Another day meant another early morning - this one a short 20 min walk up a hill to catch sunrise. We quickly realized how quiet the town seemed that morning and we were the only people up watching sunrise - a good indicator that the balloons weren’t going up that day. However, we did have the pleasure of waking up every dog in Göreme as we walked, and enjoyed their company as we watched the beautiful, albeit windy, sunrise. Afterwards we went back to nap once again until the hefty breakfast. At breakfast Nadja and Gabriel mentioned that they were going to the underground dwellings today and invited us along. We went to 2 different locations, Kaymakli and Derinkuye. Derinkuye had more stairs and seemed to go much deeper, but Kaymakli was much more spacious to explore and see different rooms, so we were very glad to visit both. Thanks Nadja and Gabriel for letting us tag along :).

We found 2 nice coffee shops along the way home….thankfully Nadja loved coffee as much as Nicole so we had no qualms with back-to-back coffee stops, especially with the views the second offered. Unfortunately, they headed back to Kayseri late that afternoon so we continued onto our next hike, through Rose and Red Valley, to catch the sunset over the beautifully colored canyons. While it lived up to the expectations, we hadn’t really accounted for the hike home AFTER sunset and barely made it out of the canyon before true dark hit. We followed with dinner at a rooftop terrace…once again the food wasn't the greatest and we couldn’t help but compare it to the delicious meals we constantly found in Istanbul. While the restaurants all looked much nicer, food quality was definitely lower. After a late night the day before, and another early morning coming up, we headed to bed very early.

Our last morning we once again hiked up to the hill and fortunately the balloons were going up. Considering that in the last 9 days, they had only gone up for 2…. We felt very lucky. It was a perfect morning and we were joined by many more people to capture the moment (including a bride and groom who were taking what MAY be the coolest wedding photos ever). We went back and grabbed breakfast and our bags and took off for the airport. When booking a shuttle, they ask what flight you are on and give you a corresponding pickup time. While we usually plan to be at the airport 2 hours ahead for domestic flights (thanks Peru), this would only put us in an hour before flight time. This is a frequent cause of stress for us, as we have had one too many close calls or missed flights due to not being at the airport early enough, but they assured us it would be plenty of time here. While our shuttle was running a bit late (a family of 5 MAY have overslept and held up the whole bus), we still made it with time to spare as we took off for Izmir.

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