Not since Cambodia have I been at such a loss for words to describe a place. Neither the photos nor my prose will do Cappadocia justice. Alas, you will just have to go see it for yourself one day.
Let's start with pronunciation. I tried to work this out before we left. I mean, it's a pretty well known place, and when people asked me where we were going for the holiday, I did not want to sound like a dork. While the internet can be a great resource, one of the issues is that you always have to weigh the information you have randomly accessed through Mr. Google: is it correct, or is someone is blowing smoke? In this case, I came up with two pronunciations: Cap-a-due-chia or Cap-a-doK-e-a.
Asking around didn't get me any closer to one pronunciation. So, I chose the one that sounded right to my western ear: Cap-a-due-chia, and went with it. No one who I spoke to about our upcoming trip corrected me, so I figured I was in the good.
And, in fact, when we arrived and I asked, the answer turned out to be: "It depends." There are a whole world of questions that surprise me when those two words are the answer.
The Capadokians actually spell it CAPADOKYA and say it that way, with a hard "K." As they explained to me, foreigners have different ways of pronouncing it, and so it was pronounced for me in French, Italian, English and Spanish. So I say, have at it. Pronounce it any way you see fit, and the kind folk of the area will forgive you.
Now, the geological features and the human history. You have to talk about the two things together, because they go hand in hand. The place is unsurprisingly a Unesco World Heritage Site, and like I said, the photos aren't going to do it justice, but I'll toss them in the mix to add some color to my tragically inept prose.
This is from wiki: "Sedimentary rocks formed in lakes and streams and ignimbrite deposits erupted from ancient volcanoes approximately 9 to 3 million years ago in the Cappadocia region. The rocks of Cappadocia near Göreme [the town we stayed in] eroded into hundreds of spectacular pillars and minaret-like forms."
Which are gorgeous. And then, people being nothing if not industrious and persecuted, "The volcanic deposits are soft rocks that the people of the villages at the heart of the Cappadocia Region carved out to form houses, churches, and monasteries. Göreme became a monastic center in 300—1200 AD."
So, do you see all of those dark cave like hollows in the rock? Those are all homes and churches that were hand carved out of rock in the period from BCE to present day. Present day, because they are still carving out caves, only now they call them "hotels."
The town of Göreme, where we stayed, is at the heart of the cave dwelling area.This is the view from our cave. You can see original cave carved homes that are a thousand years old, with newly attached buildings. The advent of electricity and running water have changed the cave experience somewhat, but the new is all built on the old.
Then the people. "Churches," you puzzle, "carved cave churches in Turkey? Didn't I just read in Wiki that the vast majority of the Turkish people are Muslim?" Indeed, you may have, and indeed you would be correct. And that is why I inserted that little word "persecuted" in the above paragraph.
The first period of settlement in Göreme goes back to the Roman period, Before Current Era. However, the birth of Christianity lead to pretty much immediate persecution, so groups of early Christians fled to the area and built Underground Cities and populated it living in hidden cave homes and building churches and monasteries among the fantastical geological shapes. We haven't even gotten to the Fairy Chimneys yet.
And the Christians lived there hiding and worshiping until 1926, when Turkey and Greece (apparently) agreed to a personnel swap. Muslims for Christians. And the Christians were booted out of Turkish Cappadocia "back to" Greece. History is astonishing, and when you consider that this happened less than a hundred years ago, it is even more mind boggling. I mean, the Christians had been there for 800 years. And off they went.
But I am not a historian, so I should leave it at that, as I am only repeating the things we were told while we were there. And who knows?
The photo below is a church; the first one we happened upon while on a short hike, after we disembarked from our plane and settled in our hotel. You might wonder how much the Cappadokians charge to visit this church. This one? Well, since it's just out in the countryside, on public property, nothing. It's one of hundreds like it, though, so it's not that unusual.
And here we are at the entrance. Ew! What's that I see?! Yes, indeed. This particular ex-church is used as a loo. Or a brothel? Anyway, this was the first cave we stumbled upon, although by no means the last, so I let the children explore, with the caveat that I not be in the cave with them because it was too gross. Hey, I never said I was perfect.
Anyway, this cave church, we later found out given the carvings and painting, was probably about 800 years old. The climate is quite dry and the caves are not at all damp, so quite astonishing paintings have survived to this day. And they are all over. I cannot express quite how interesting this is. It would be like going for a walk in the countryside and having ancient ruins just available for you to explore, climb on, and, if you are the wrong sort, deface, at your leisure. Wait, that's exactly what it is. No admission fees, no audio tours, no little markers explaining everything in six languages. It's all just there.
But, more on some of the churches and cave homes we visited in later postings.
One of the things Cappadocia is quite well known for are its valleys with incredibly intricate geological features. More on that later, too, but I thought I would point out here that possibly the best way to get a gander at some of this stuff is via hot air balloon. And, no, I'll get this out of the way right up front, if you are hoping to get a bird's eye view of Love Valley, find some other blog.
First, ballooning was an expensive proposition. Which put it up for some intense scrutiny. Would it really be worth it? Would we really see much more than if we hiked the canyon walls? Did everyone really want to do it? And that's where the whole thing fell apart.
The children weren't so very keen on getting up in the morning, and neither Jeff nor I felt passionate enough about seeing Love Valley, Rose Valley or Red Valley from up above that we wanted to push them on it. I mean, really, if your only memories of traveling with your parents are of them hollering at you to get the heck out of bed and get your butt in that there hot air balloon, would you grow up a model citizen? Probably not.
It is possible that some faction of the family might have gone (Tom was adamantly no, and Hope, in a very Hope-like fashion swung in the wind), but while we had fantastic weather the first few days, by the end of the trip it had turned rainy/snowy/cold and that was that. Bad weather is not balloon friendly.
I did go running one morning in the early hours, and I only wish I had brought my camera with me. There must have been 50 balloons on the ground, going up, coming down. It was an amazing sight. But, if you are wondering, no regrets. What I saw from the ground was a lifetime of memories, suitable for framing.
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And with that, my fingers are tired of typing. It's National Novel Writing Month this month, and I'm plugging away at at least 1700 words a day of something other than this blog, plus this blog, and frankly, that's a lot for my aging finger joints. Forget the cute hat knitting.
Here are a few random photos, with more, much more, coming.
The view of the house next door to our hotel.
Random gorgeous geological features with cave homes and churches carved into them. When I say they were all over, I am not exagerating.
The carved square holes are for pigeon roosts. The area was predominently agricultural up until it became part of the Turkish Tourist Route about twenty years ago, and to provide nutrients for the soil, most households kept pigeons. On presumes they ate them, too, but the key reason was to use the guano for fertilizer.
That's a carved cave at the top of that feature. One presumes a ladder was present at some point in earlier history. A long ladder.
Tomorrow: Because I am in the mood for some frivolity, Love Valley
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