Intrepid traveller… Cappadocia

11 hours and 10 kilometres from our destination of Göreme, our overnight bus kicked us off at a small depot in the middle of nowhere, amongst yet more snow. Little explanation was given other than our bus was no longer travelling into Göreme – at a whim, the driver was heading straight to the next town.

Bag-laden we huddled together in the cold (offers for us to sit in the smoke filled reception room not-so-graciously declined) as we waited for the next coach to come along. It was 7am and the coach was due for 8am, Turkish-time. As we’ve come to realise the clocks in Turkey tick to their own beat, so our guide rang our hotel to see if they might collect us. Thankfully they were awake and answered her call.

Göreme is a small town in Cappadocia – a historical and unique area of Asia Minor known for its fairy chimneys (conical rock formations formed after volcanic eruptions more than 8 million years ago). Naturally porous and easily shaped, these conical hills became homes for the people of the area. Digging out the insides they were able to create cave dwellings that have stood for thousands of years.

Most of the cave houses have now been abandoned – their foundations finally crumbling – and those which are still occupied are owned by the government, leased to families and passed down the ancestral line. We were lucky enough to be invited into one such home yesterday, for tea and some soft-selling. On a walk through the town we bumped into Haditha, a local in her late fifties who moved to Göreme 28 years ago when she married her husband. It was his family home that she welcomed us into, showing off her 7-year-old granddaughter as well as her handmade scarves, etc. As nothing in Turkey is ‘for free’, Anna and Glen took one for the team and bought one of her handsewn pillow cases. Haditha told us it was real Zebra skin… although its leopard-like print made us question her translation.

Not ones for settling on simple caves above ground, the ancient people of the region also dug below, with more than 40 underground cities created from around 2,000 BC. These cave cities protected their inhabitants during war time, even housing livestock. We visited the biggest and deepest, Derinkuyu – with eight floors and extending to a depth of approximately 85 metres.

Tomorrow we continue to travel eastwards, to Gaziantep, on our way towards Syria.

Note: Sadly, my trusty Dell laptop (c.2003) has suffered a fatal blow – the connection to the main power supply no longer ‘connecting’ – so posts from now on will revert to using stolen photos from net (top pic thanks to Jim Shannon's photostream and Derinkuyu caves courtesy of Encounterturkey.com). I’m devastated; mainly because now I have to lug around 3-odd kilos of dead weight.