For more photographs see: http://www.anatolianphotos.shutterfly.com/
Cappadocia, about five hours’ drive east of Ankara, is as surreal as it gets. Several millennia of selective erosion of tuff from massive volcanic eruptions long ago, have created a landscape like no other in the world.
So soft is the tuff stone that early Christians, unable to practice their religion in peace during Roman rule, began to carve homes and churches into cliffs, hillsides and the “fairy chimneys” that dot the landscape of the central Anatolian plain. Over a period of seven hundred years, beginning in the 4th century B.C.E., more than 200 churches, thousands of cave homes, and several enormous underground cities created a maze of structures that simply defy the imagination. It is nearly impossible to adequately describe how unreal and spectacular this area of Turkey is.
Larry and I have been to this region twice before, on our visit fifteen years ago. We had not planned on visiting Cappadocia again, as there are so many other places in Turkey we would still like to see. But when we were presented with the opportunity of joining one hundred or more Americans in planting trees in a Cappadocia village called Başdere, we signed up, and even made a modest contribution to the purchase of some saplings.
Ray and Barbara very generously offered to drive us, rather than taking a bus full of families with young kids.
This trip to Cappadocia differed from the previous two in many ways, including the hotel we booked. In Göreme, one of the major tourist towns in Cappadocia, we stayed in one of the more affordable “cave hotels.” For the equivalent of $40 per night, we had our very own cave room—cut into the tuff, with rough sides and ceiling, but a smooth, pretty wooden floor. The kilims hung on the wall made it look quite cozy and a little less “cave-y.” The room was comfortable if small. The bathroom was not so clean—mold was evidence that the moisture was not sufficiently vented. But the view was spectacular and the price was right. I’m sure that the pseudo (but beautiful) “cave” hotel a few yards down the hill would have been cleaner and more luxurious, if we had wanted to spend about $1000 per night. We were quite happy, thank you very much, with our little Sarihan Otel (trans.: “yellow caravansaray”).
After a somewhat overpriced lunch, we headed to the Göreme National Open Air Museum, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, with a large concentration of carved structures and a wide variety of churches. The earlier ones contained somewhat crude frescoes, in one color, red. As the centuries progressed, the frescoes and the structures themselves became more elaborate. One church, called Karanlık Kilise (“Dark, without light, church”) had so few window openings that the frescoes are as fresh and bright as the day they were painted. Frescoes in other churches show fading and wear, while still others have been damaged by iconoclasts many centuries ago.
Fifteen years ago, we walked throughout this park on paths that were tricky to navigate – they were simply tuff pathways, with some loose sand on slopes that ranged from a slight incline to quite steep. The intervening years saw the installation of cobbled walkways, stairways and observation platforms, easing the formerly difficult walk and/or climb to several of the churches, monasteries and homes. Turkey has made a real effort to ease the comfort of tourists, both domestic and international. Of course, the hefty entry fee helps.
The following day, we headed to Başdere, where we joined one hundred or more Americans and about two hundred villagers in the fourth annual Earth Day Tree Planting sponsored by the U.S. Embassy (and originated by the Embassy’s gardener, a native of the village), and local municipal leaders and organizations.
Unbelievably, we planted 1,500 trees in 2 ½ hours! Admittedly, I use the term “we” loosely; my short, square shovel being virtually useless on the rocky hillside, I mostly got in people’s way taking pictures. But I tried. Larry was given a proper shovel to use, and, with his unfulfilled desire (in Turkey) to dig in the dirt, he worked like crazy. Every now and then, I patted down the soil or carried some of the saplings to a new hole for planting--then took more pictures.
At lunchtime, the village women who had prepared a feast for all three hundred workers, served us a fine lunch in the village’s central park.
In four years, this program has planted an astounding 8,000 trees. As part of the country’s reforestation projects, the town has only about eight million more trees to go :-), but they’ve made a good start.
Afternoon being free, we continued our sight-seeing. First we visited a place called “Paşabaği,” where there is a beautiful concentration of fairy chimneys seemingly marching through the surreal valleys. Some looked like gigantic mushrooms. Others, especially those in the nearby “Love Valley” looked like – well, guess (see the photos if I’ve actually stumped you).
These stone monoliths were formed when a layer of hard rock, sitting on top of a deeper layer of tuff, channeled rain in such a way that the softer tuff was sculpted into tall cylinders, capped by a wider, but thinner, layer of darker, harder stone. It looks as though the huge cylinders have little “caps” on top, although the local populace (or just us tourists?) refer to the structures as “fairy chimneys.”
Later, we stopped at a roadside observation point where, looking down from the road, we saw some of the most amazing giant fairy chimneys. To me, it was a trip down memory lane. I have photographs of all of us, five year old Anna included, at this very spot fifteen years ago, when a student, Şaban, took us to many sights in Cappadocia and hosted us in his parents’ summer home in Kayseri.
Our last stop of the day was a town we had never heard of, called “Uçhisar,” meaning “Three Castles.” Two of the castles are actually in other towns. The one in Uçhisar was a gigantic outcropping, carved inside and out and forming a lookout “castle” that dominates the landscape in this part of Cappadocia. Larry and I toyed with the idea of climbing it from an inside stairway, but decided against it. We were tired and Ray and Barbara, even more tired, were waiting in the car. Besides, we had seen so many panoramic views by then that we had had enough for the day.
Climbing down from the hill at the base of the castle, I finally saw Mt. Erciyes! This is the mountain that sits next to Kayseri and made itself invisible during our entire Kayseri trip a few months ago. It is also one of the mountains that spewed all the ash – later tuff – that surrounded us.
In planning our trip to Cappadocia, we picked out a few other sights we had hoped to see, but were unable to. One was at least one of the several underground cities carved down into the stone, some of which extend up to fifteen or twenty stories deep. Capable of housing as many as 40,000 people for six months, these cities were the perfect hiding places for populations harassed by Roman troops. We had visited one of these cities fifteen years ago, but were game to climb down again.
Other sights we hoped to see again were the Ihlara Valley, and Mustafapaşa. The Valley is a rift, with, again, churches and homes built down into the sheer stone. The small town of Mustafapaşa had been the home of wealthy Greeks, with large, beautiful stone mansions left behind after the Greeks left Turkey. On our first trip to Cappadocia so many years ago, we visited Mustafapaşa briefly one evening. Not succeeding in finding a needed WC, I saw an open door, leading to another open door, with a facility beckoning me. Only after I emerged did I look more carefully, only to find that I had brazenly walked into somebody’s private house! (They never saw me--I think).
Anyway, we’ve got lots of memories of Cappadocia, some old and some new. Another example of the latter is the sight of dozens of hot air balloons floating above the city of Göreme in the early morning. I would estimate that it will take another three visits to see all I would still like to see – both for the first time, and as a repeat. It is an amazing place. Here is a web site that may help fill in where mere words, and even my photographs fail: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cappadocia and http://www.cappadociaturkey.net/
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