Day 153: Monday 18 August – Cappadocia: Göreme Churches, Kaymaki Underground City and The Ihlara Valley, by Ken

It wasn’t a good night’s sleep. The relative cool of Cappadocia meant we both slept in Mabel for the first time in ages. Jane had one of her ‘turns’ during the night and woke me wanting to know how to get out of Mabel. She seemed satisfied with me telling her where the door was and promptly went back to sleep. I made a mental note to buy one of those self-illuminating exit signs. I didn’t sleep for a long while. Then at 5:00 I woke with bad cramp in one of my calves and that was it as far as sleep was concerned.

Sitting in Mabel about 5:30 I noticed an orange glow in the pre-dawn light through one of her windows and went outside to investigate. The glow was the burner of a hot air balloon lifting slowly into the sky, it was one of dozens that were taking off to see the sun rise over Cappadocia. It was quite a magical sight with the balloons floating silently, the early morning silence was broken only by the sound of the balloon’s burners firing.

Here's a few shots of balloons seen at sunrise:

 

About To Fly Over Mabel

After breakfast I caught up with Yasar who had found out who the leader of the guys that rescued us yesterday was. His name was Ahmet, he worked locally and was a regular visitor to the camping ground. There should be no problem in seeing him during our stay and giving him a thank you gift.

We drove Smarty towards Göreme passing the spot where we got stuck yesterday. We were impressed we had got as far as we did up a very steep slope and we were so close to the top only to be thwarted by a tight bend on the steep slope.

We parked and walked over the road to the Göreme Open Air Museum following Yasar’s advice to buy a Museum Pass for 45 lira each and get audio guides. Buying the passes was easy, but we felt we were intruding on the woman at the audio guide window. She was on the phone and my request for “Two please” generated “Next window” in reply. I said “Two audio guides please” while she continued her phone conversation. That got us two pamphlets that were slid across the counter to us while she continued to talk. Next two audio guides appeared in much the same way and still she was talking. We decided that was all the service we were going to get and started walking away. She interrupted her telephone conversation sufficient for her to yell “ID please” and I walked back and gave her my driver’s licence. (Usual practice is to require something that will ensure audio guides are returned).

The open air museum was very interesting although we thought afterwards the name was something of a misnomer as the museum site was comprised of a convent and more than 30 churches carved out of the volcanic tuff. All date back to the 7^th century and most were decorated with ornate frescos.

Here's a taste of what we saw:

The museum site was very busy with tour groups. As usual at popular sites Chinese and Japanese were well represented. There was also a group of young Australians that we came across having team photographs taken while they sang what was presumably the team song. It sounded more French than Australian. At one point the group was joined by a Chinese man who sat on the edge of the group while his partner took a photograph.

Australian Group Photo Shoot. Note Chinese On Left

From Göreme we took the back roads to Kaymakl where we wanted to visit an underground city. In the area there are up to 40 known underground settlements dating back to Hittite times at least (1900 to 1200BC) . They range from villages to cities that could accommodate tens of thousands of people. Possibly built originally to serve as shelters from attacks by invaders from Thrace, they may subsequently have provided permanent accommodation. Derinkuyu is the largest of the underground cities with room to accommodate 40,000 people, it is believed Kaymaki was big enough for 20,000 people.

Even today an underground city is not easy to find! The back road brought us in to the centre of the town of Kaymaki. Jane interpreted the Rough Guide as saying the city lay to the south. We drove down a dual carriageway for about 5km at which point Jane felt we had gone too far. We found a roundabout, turned around and went back. Still no sign of it. We turned around and headed south again driving further out than before. We turned around again. Jane had the good idea of checking the guide book to see how far north of Derinkuyu the city was. It was 9km, satnav showed we were 14km away. We hadn’t gone far enough south, we began to head north again to find somewhere to turn around before realising the 14km included the length of dual carriageway we had to backtrack before doing a U-turn. In any case, we were pretty sure we had seen a brown tourist sign to the city when we had driven through Kaymaki yesterday.

We found the sign about 100 metres north of the point we joined the road earlier. If only we had turned right and not left we would not have wasted the best part of half an hour. The sign directed us to a parking area, even then it wasn’t obvious we were in the right place. The ubiquitous parking attendant pounced and confirmed we were. There was no signage and most of the area was a construction site. Work was in progress on what appeared to be a canopy to provide shade for visitors walking to the entrance to the underground city. It wasn’t a good advertisement for Turkish building skills.

Not A Good Advert For Turkish Building Skills (This Had Just Been Built)

We found the entrance only when we spotted people that looked very much like tourists walking down a flight of steps some way off. At the turnstiles we were greeted by a man who pointed to a three dimensional representation of the city, explained it was difficult for a first time visitor to find their way around underground and extolled the benefits of having a guide. We didn’t disagree knowing from previous experience that you don’t get a lot of value from a visit unless you have a good guide book, audio guide, or guide. I asked where we could find a guide and purely coincidentally it turned out he was one! He introduced himself as Shakir.

Shakir was very good, he used to be a teacher and had been doing guide work during school holidays. He had retired from teaching and now takes three of four visitors a day around Kaymaki. He had good English and a great sense of humour. We passed his first test knowing what Cappadocia meant (land of beautiful horses). Shakir told us he had been born, and lived in, a cave until 1964 when the government moved the family into a house. They stuck that out for a while, but weren’t happy and moved back to a cave.

Our tour started on the first of four floors currently open to the public. Here was the stables for horses with mangers cut into the wall. Shakir set a cracking pace darting along narrow, low corridors that spiraled downwards. He pointed out that the city was laid out similar to a tree with a central pillar of rock (the trunk) with rooms radiating off it (branches). Ingeniously, the design was such that groups of rooms we never directly above, or below, others providing a strong design. We saw a small church complete with font, a communal kitchen, incredibly small living areas that were used by families of eight to ten. A small hole in the floor allowed families to communicate with their neighbours. There was even a prison for captured enemies and miscreants. There was a winery and a 6km tunnel led to an adjacent village. A 60 metre deep ventilation shaft ran the height of the city, it had footholds in its walls. Shakir suggested with his tongue firmly in his cheek that Jane might like to climb down. He told us that a Czech tourist did climb down the shaft only to find he couldn’t climb back up again. It was the next day before he was found and rescued.

Shakir asked if I was claustrophobic. There was a tunnel he used to help those suffering from the phobia to overcome it. He gave me his torch and suggested I might like to give it a go. It was hard going requiring me to stoop and shuffle my way down. On the way back something grabbed my shoulder getting a large gasp in return. It was Shakir who had stuck his arm through a hole in the shaft.

We saw massive ‘doors’ that could be closed from inside the caves. They were comprised of circular stones weighing up to 2 tonnes that had been carved in place and could simply be rolled across the entrances. Externally, they were impossible to open. The doors had a central hole through which arrows could be fired at any aggressors.

Entrance to 6km Tunnel

The Hittites Were Not Big People

Church

Mill Stone

Trying To Move A Two Tonne Door

This Was Home For Up To 10 People

Shakir's Cure For Claustrophobia

Jane and Shakir 

Mother Of All Mortars (Pestle Missing)

At the end of the tour Shakir asked if we had any questions. Ever able to focus on the important things, I wanted to know where the toilets were in the city. The answer was that had to come to the surface. All very well,  but hardly convenient if the 2 tonne door is closed and there are people on the other side that want to kill you.

Ken and Shakir

 Shakir really brought the place to life for us and it was well worth his fee plus the hefty tip we gave him. In return we received a large blue glass pendant to bring us luck and an invitation to join Shakir for çhay. He led us down to the family carpet shop where we made it clear we were not in the market for a carpet. That was fine by Shakir, we drunk his tea while he proceeded to try and sell us carpets. His value proposition was if we changed our minds in Istanbul we would pay a lot more there for a carpet. Unlike Moroccans we had found Turks will take no for an answer and we left carpetless.

We ate lunch in a nearby restaurant of köfte, rice, salad and bread. Theonly other people there were men drinking tea and playing dominoes.

Pause For Lunch

After lunch we drove nearly 100km cross-country to the Ihlara valley, a deep gorge with a good track that would allow us to walk in the relative cool of the gorge as well as seeing troglodyte villages. The published walk was 6km in one direction. 

The Road Was A Bit Dusty In Places

Unfortunately, it was mid afternoon by the time we reached an entrance to the valley in the village of Ihlara. We drove on to the village of Belisirma where we opted to walk 2km up the valley towards Ihlara and back again. It made a very pleasant change to walk in the shade of trees with the river burbling nearby. On the way back we climbed steps up the cliff face to visit the Saint George’s Church cut into the cliff face. Like the churches we had seen in Göreme it contained some fine frescos that people clearly thought it was fun to add to them by way of graffiti. How thoughtless.

Gorge Seen From Ihlara

Troglodyte Dwellings In Gorge Wall

This is St George's Church:

These shots give a feel for how different the gorge was  to other parts of Cappadocia:

From Belisirma we took the road northwards passing the stunning troglodyte village of Selime from where we set a course for home. As Jane drove we met flocks of swallows feeding on the wing. Some flew straight at Smarty before turning away at the last moment.

Selime

We speculated why there was a church to England’s patron saint in Turkey. That showed our ignorance of history. A quick Google revealed George was a Greek, born in Palestine (to a father from Cappadocia as it turns out). Brought up as a Christian, George joined the Roman army. He was executed for refusing to worship the Roman gods and is recognised as a saint throughout the Christian world.

We stopped to refuel. By the time I got back to Smarty the pump attendant had opened the passenger door and his dog was sitting in my seat. It seemed a well rehearsed stunt and the dog was perfectly happy.

Stowaway

The sky grew darker as we headed for Gorëme and we ran into very heavy rain. The deep ruts in the dual carriageway we had driven up and down in the morning trying to find the underground city at Kaymaki were now small streams while the bottom of sag curves were more like boating lakes. Passing through Kaymaki we found street drainage was missing altogether and we drove along a shallow river of water.

Road Was Slightly Damp!

Street/River In Kaymaki

The rain had stopped by the time we neared Kaya Camping but the storm had clearly passed through there. It was then that we remembered we had left Mabel’s roof hatches open. The only real damage was a wet bed and fortunately the water hadn’t got past the mattress protector. While the floors of the bathroom and living area were wet, we had left the carpets in England with Phil knowing it was so much easier to clean the floor without them. After 10 minutes mopping up everything was back to normal again.

There were also signs that the awning had been blown about and we resolved not to go out again without ensuring the hatches were closed and guy ropes attached to the awning.

Having eaten out at lunchtime we snacked on bread and cheese.