Cappadocia: Merits of the Guided Tour

I've never been a "guided tour" kind of person.  To me, a guided tour means you spend way too much time listening to someone talk about something you don't quite care about, while never having quite enough time to explore whatever it is you do care about.  Hell, I don't even like audioguides.

But, as it happens, Cappadocia is big.  It's a whole region, and if I wanted to see what awesomeness lay beyond the limits of my own two feet, I was going to have to sign up for a tour.  (I guess I could have rented a car, but... yikes.)

And hey, the fact that I needed to be on a minibus at 9:30 AM was really helpful in ensuring that I did not spend half of the day in bed.

There seem to be a couple standard tours offered by various companies, that all pretty much follow the same routes.  I booked through my hostel, and signed up for the South Cappadocia Tour, or "Green" tour.  It looked to be a pretty solidly full day.

We started off at the Goreme Panorama, which I was really glad I hadn't hiked to the day before as that would have been a tad redundant.  (I originally booked this tour a couple weeks ago and honestly did not remember exactly what all was on it.)  Just a quick talk from our tour guide, Vedat, about Cappadocia's history, a couple photos to show the boys back home, and it was back onto the bus.

One of the many little vendor stalls.  I WILL have one of these lamps!

I instantly liked Vedat, our tour guide.  He was friendly and young, down-to-earth and not the least bit saccharine or fake.  We had a couple fun conversations during the longer rides between stops.  He teased me about being a teacher, saying he hated hearing about how teachers worked so hard when they had so much time off.  I returned fire with a few of my better stories (and Rachel's), and asked if anyone from his tour groups had ever peed on his feet.

Our next stop was the Derinkuyu Underground City, but apparently the line to get in was astronomical, so Vedat took us instead to visit Selime Rock Monastery, promising we'd be back to Derinkuyu at the end of the day.

I LOVED Selime.  It reminded me so much of Uplistsikhe, the Georgian cave city I visited with Chris just about a year ago that day!  Vedat was going to give us 20 puny minutes to explore, but I gave him the hard sell and got us bumped up to 35.  Go me.  And I did need every second of that, believe me.  This place was so cool!

Right as we got back on the bus, it started to rain.  Perfect time to stop for lunch on a covered wooden porch overlooking a river!  The food was really good and my fellow tour-goers quite friendly.  An excellent lunch.  Then it was just a short drive to Ihlara Valley for a short hike.

It rained on us, but hooray for North Face rain jacket and quick-dry pants!

And then, we drove back to Derinkuyu and this time there was practically no line at all.  Vedat was hilarious as he tried to get us all ticketed and shepherded in ahead of this massive group of Chinese tourists.  We made it, yay. :)

Derinkuyu was mind-blowingly impressive.  I forget how many levels there are in total, but the first eight are open to the public.  Contrary to some popular belief, the people didn't live in the underground cities all the time, only when threatened by invading armies.  When that happened, they slipped quietly away to hang out underground for a couple months until the baddies up above got bored and went away.

Unfortunately, the cave city was the first time during the day that I felt that Vedat was kind of rushing us through.  I made sure to ask about every opening and passage that I saw, and he was pretty good about letting me explore, but I still would have liked some more time.  Oh well.

Finally, for our last stop we had one more "photo opportunity" overlooking the aptly-named Pigeon Valley.

It was here that the group became acquainted with Turkish Viagra.

I bought some naturally dried apricots and some peanuts that had been rolled in honey and sesame seeds.  Delish.  The vendor also managed to sell a tiny pot of "Turkish Viagra" to a very nice Indonesian man traveling with his family.  "Is like a BOMB!" the vendor promised.  One can only hope.

Back in Goreme, I found Fat Boy's, a Lonely Panet-recommended restaurant and pub, and had some  hummus.  After my huge lunch on the tour, I couldn't have handled anything more!  Then I went to find the also-Lonely Planet-recommended Red Red Wine House, specializing in local Cappadocian wine.  It was adorable but I was the only tourist there, and the only wines he had by the glass were house red and house white.  One of those things that would have been spectacular if I'd had a travel buddy to share it with, but on my own it only ended up being slightly awkward.  Proprietor was incredibly nice though.

I'd had such a good time with Vedat on the Green Tour that I decided to go ahead and sign up for the Red Tour the following day.  This was sort of the "lighter" tour, and would be even lighter than usual for me because it included a trip to the Goreme Open Air Museum, which of course I had already seen and convinced them to give me the tour minus the price of the museum ticket, and to drop me back at the hotel before visiting the museum at the end of the trip.  Considering the museum was supposed to start the tour, I thought this was incredibly nice of them.

The Red Tour (North Tour) started off in Cavusin, which was home to an old Greek cave settlement.  Abandoned after WWI, these cave homes were much newer than those from the Byzantine era, and so in places still looked very much like the shells of houses.  They were all built into the side of a cliff, and like everywhere else you could just climb and romp and explore to your heart's content, and if you fell to your death, well, on your own head be it.

The allotted half-hour was not enough time.  I wanted to poke my head into every alcove and investigate every hidden turn.  Every time I visit a place like this, I think about how great it would be to be able to see an artist's rendition of what it might have looked like at its peak.  Obviously those doorways in the last photo were at one time much more grand.  And how did the people move about?  Were they part mountain goat?  Or were there ladders and pulleys and such that obviously could never make it to present day?

Anyway, even if you don't do the guided tour, I highly recommend checking out Cavusin!

But for us, it was back on the bus and over to Pasabag, or Monk's Valley.  Yet another awesome weird alien landscape for me to fall in love with.  The rock here was practically alabaster white and eroded away to a fine grit almost like talcum.  It made for fun moments when the wind picked up.  The valley is named for St. Simeon, who apparently retreated here when he got too famous.

Bright white!

Love the pathway of steps worn into the soft rock.

Just to the right of this ridge, I spotted an old wooded ladder and a hand-lettered sign inviting people down to see a "hobby garden".  So I went to check it out.  There was the nicest man waiting under a shade awning with a cup of apple tea for me!  He had a couple things for sale, like tea leaves and home-dried fruit, and bottles of his homemade wine, which I really really wanted but he was asking 40 lira!  So I regretfully declined.  Besides, to climb back up I needed hands at a few tricky parts, and wasn't exactly sure how a bottle of wine was going to work out.  I also had to sadly refuse his offer to tour the garden, as my bus was leaving soon.  He really did have a pretty sweet setup, and I wish I could have stayed longer.  Oh well.  Should you for some reason find yourself at Monk's Valley, look for this guy.  His English was excellent and his apple tea delicious.

After Pasabag, we stopped for lunch at this very fancy buffet!  I rather liked yesterday's casual lunch at the riverside better.  But the food was good, even if my second batch of tour companions were some of the quietest people I had ever met.  I tried to strike up conversation a couple times but to no avail.  It was a rather silent lunch.  After all that, we bussed to a pottery shop in Avanos, and got a quick tour followed by a demonstration on a kick wheel.  After we watched the master at work, our guide asked if any of us wanted to try.  Well, of course I did!

Tiny secret -- I took pottery lessons for a couple years in my early 20s.  I am by no means a talented or accomplished potter.  But I was kind of excited at getting to show off a little. :)

Not a bad effort, if I do say so myself!  However, any vase that I might have created is, of course, completely eclipsed by the EPIC PANTS I was given to wear during this particular adventure.  I wanted to take them home and they would not let me.  (Also, just want to make it clear that I did not leave the hostel like that.  Those are not my pants.  No, they really aren't.  Stop laughing.  Asshole.)

After all that, it was time for a couple more "photo opportunities" at Ugrup and Devrent Valley.

Camel

The "family" rock chimneys, the symbol of Cappadocia

And then the rest of my group went to the Open Air Museum and I went to enjoy a glass or two of Cappadocian white on the roof terrace.  I mean, I was on vacation.

View of Goreme from Shoestring's roof terrace

Cappadocia: First Impressions

WELL.  Internet friends and lovers -- this one is for YOU!  I logged on this morning to find I'd surpassed 22,222 hits on the blog!  Utterly awesome, and thank you.  (Trolls and snide anonymous comment-leavers still unwelcome, natch.  Just go elsewhere.  But thanks for your hit! :p)

And yet once again, it seems I must offer apologies for the tardiness of this post.  My trip to Cappadocia just so happened to fall right smack in the middle of certain busy events at my school, and immediately before a friend from the States came to stay for nine nights.  Plus, after avoiding it for weeks (due to terror), I finally got Egypt sorted!  A Nile River cruise is happening!!!  So yeah, lots to catch you up on.

But first:  phallic fairy chimneys, Turkish viagra, conquering claustrophobia, and a possible concussion.  Good times!

If there are precious few things for which I will stand in an hour-long line, there are even fewer for which I will willingly get up at 4:30 in the morning.

Apparently, Cappadocia makes the short list.

After being so mentally away from everything for so long, it was a welcome breath of air to pull out Sisyphus again, pack him full of crap, and sally forth into predawn darkness.  I live three easy metro stops from Ataturk, but I discovered that is less helpful at 5:00 in the morning, as the metro is very definitely still closed for the night then.  (WTH Istanbul?  Don't you know that 5:00 AM is a completely acceptable time to start commuting?  Just ask all those perfectly sane people living around DC.  They'll tell you.)  So I got a taxi.  It worked out fine.

I love airports.  I love the thrill of being about to go somewhere.  I love getting through security, boarding pass in hand, and finding my gate with enough time to take a seat at a nearby cafe and people-watch for a while, listening to all the different languages, taking a peek at all the countless stories happening all around.  Flight itself was smooth -- short and uneventful.  I'd flown into Kayseri, and had arranged a shuttle bus transfer to my hostel in Goreme, which also worked out with no problem.  Although apparently I was lucky it did, because at least three other people thought they'd booked the same bus and did not end up going to Goreme right just then.

My hostel, Shoestring Cave House, was not the fanciest accommodation in Goreme but it was pretty cute.  They weren't really a hostel though.  It was mostly private rooms, with one big dormitory (16 beds!!) tucked away on the ground floor.  Bathrooms were across the courtyard, which meant you had to actually go outside.  Not the greatest for a midnight pee, and just bummer for you if it happened to be thunderstorming.  In my travels, I've come to to the conclusion that a place really just needs to decide from the get-go whether it wants to be a hotel or a hostel, and then just bloody well pick one and stick to it.  I've never had truly stellar experiences at any accommodation that was attempting to straddle the fence.  To put it simply, hostel life and hotel life are really very different.  They attract very different types of travelers, who have very different and specific ideas as to what their stay should look like.  It's hard to make everyone happy in this kind of conflicting environment.  But the staff were (mostly) very friendly and helpful.  I checked in, claimed a bed, confirmed my tour for the following day, and signed up to have dinner at the hotel's restaurant at 7:00 that evening.  Time to explore!

Goreme is really cute, but years of subsisting almost purely on tourism has turned it into a bit of a Cappadocia Disneyland.  No exaggeration, there are probably at least 200 different "cave hotels", and about as many tour operators nestled in between "authentic" Turkish restaurants and souvenir shops selling "authentic" kitsch.  I walked around town a little, got some mezzes for lunch at one of those aforementioned restaurants, and walked north out of town to find the Goreme Open Air Museum.  On my way I got my first real glimpses of this very justifiably famous landscape.  Never seen anything like it -- because there is nothing like it.  In the whole world, Cappadocia is the only known region to have geological phenomena like this, the affectionately-named Fairy Chimneys.

On my way to the museum, I took a quick side trip down a dirt path to see El Nazar Kilise, a 10th-century church.  I was somehow expecting something more church-shaped, but this is what I got.  My first foray into a Cappadocian cave structure!

El Nazar Kilise (Church of the Evil Eye)

Frescoes inside, sadly quite damaged

 The Goreme Open Air Museum is not really a museum.  It's a monastic settlement that dates from the Byzantine era, and is an impressive cluster of churches and monasteries all carved into stone.  Special bonus for me!  Right as I arrived it started to absolutely monsoon, so I waited under cover chatting with a very nice older couple from California.  When the rain stopped 20 minutes later, the place had emptied out and wasn't nearly as crowded as I'd been warned to expect.  Hooray!

They let you climb about pretty liberally, which of course I adore, but wouldn't allow photos inside the churches where all the truly impressive and gorgeous frescoes are.  The very best frescoes are in the Karanlik Kilise, which naturally they make you pay an additional 8 lira for.  Lonely Planet advised me not to skip it, and I have to agree with them.  Breathtaking.

I was able to do a good circuit and leave the museum right as the place began to once again reach Critical Tourist Mass.  It was still only mid-afternoon, and I thought I might follow some pray-painted arrows and do a little hiking in Rose Valley.  Only I'd been up since 4:30 AM and my body was beginning to protest.  I stopped at a little cart and  got a cup of freshly squeezed (as in, squeezed right there in front of me) orange and pomegranate juice.  The vendor was utterly charmed at my Turkish, and the big hit of natural sugar and vitamins was exactly what I needed. :)  Onward!

After the crowds at the Open Air Museum, the nearly deserted Rose Valley was blessedly still.  I put my pepper spray in my front pocket though.  No sense being unprepared.  Rose Valley was incredible.  It was hard to believe all these weird giant towers of rock were actually completely natural.  I also quickly realized how easy it would be to become very very lost in this weird landscape full of criscrossing paths, and made sure to take notice of landmarks so I could find my way back.

Something completely awesome about Cappadocia:  there are literally the remains of caves and cave settlements everywhere.  I do mean everywhere.  It is completely awesome.  And they're all just sort of there.  Completely open and just begging to be explored.  For someone like me, this is just about the best thing.... well, ever. :)

Tatooine.  I half expected Jawas to jump out and zap me.

Amazing multi-storey house I found.  This was the upper room,

Tiny cave church, with remains of frescoes on the walls.

I hiked for maybe 2.5 hours total, out and back.  I would have liked to have gone farther, but you can see from the Tatooine picture that rain remained a threateningly real possibility, and my high from the orange and pomegranate juice was fading.  I stumped back towards town, stopping along the side of the road for a fortifying beer and chat with a lovely Canadian woman who'd happened to find herself in this strange land these past 20 years.

Unquestionably the best thing about Shoestring Cave House is that they have a rooftop pool.  Even if it was too chilly for swimming, the roof terrace offered a spectacular view of Goreme and was unbeatable for chilling after a long and satisfying day.  I had a glass of Cappadocian white and met a cool Australian girl.  At 7:00 I went down for dinner and was very pleasantly surprised!  Soup, salad, and then a main course of chicken and rice, served on this sort of personal Mongolian barbecue apparatus.  With real fire!  I love it when food gets served to me on fire.  (Technically, I guess, the fire was below the food.  Whatever.)  Everything was quite tasty.  Had a lovely quiet night and retreated to bed around midnight.  A very satisfying first day in Cappadocia!

Topkapi Palace, or How I Learned What "Harem" Means

The Disgruntled Hermit spreads her wings!

Yep, after pretty much a solid month of Doctor Who and various poorly-written novels, two Sundays ago I finally made myself put on real pants and go out of the house for something other than work or grocery shopping (or a beer run).  I went into Sultanahmet to check off one of the big giant touristy must-sees that I hadn't hit yet -- Topkapi Palace.  Otherwise known as the Buckingham Palace of the Ottoman Turks.

The Gate of Salutation

The palace grounds are enormous, and my guidebooks all said to budget at least two hours at the site to allow yourself time to see it all.  They did not, however, mention that you also needed to budget an hour for standing in the sun, waiting to buy your goddamed ticket.  There were automated kiosks, but I wasn't sure if they took cash and I didn't want to lose my place in the line I was already in.

(Also the length of said line should have in no way taken an hour.  But I watched a group of three women as they stood at the ticket window for at least ten minutes.  I'm not being hyperbolic.  When I say ten minutes, I don't mean three minutes that felt like ten minutes.  I mean they stood there for at least ten fucking minutes, because it was ten minutes from when I noticed and started timing them with my watch.  What on earth were they doing up there for ten minutes??  Even if they were counting out their ticket costs in pennies, it shouldn't have taken ten minutes unless they kept forgetting which number came after six.  And they weren't the only ones taking forever.  I was so confused.  When I finally got my sweaty and irritated self up to the counter, it was "Bir billet lutfen, sarayi ve harem." [One ticket please, palace and harem.]  I handed over my money, received my tickets, and was on my way.  TWENTY-FIVE FUCKING SECONDS, PEOPLE.  Thus leaving nine minutes and thirty-five seconds of giant honking unsolved mystery.)

Ahem.

Most of you know by now that there is not much I'll stand in an hour-long line for.  But I was determined that after my long self-imposed exile from my temporary home city, that I was going to check something off the Istanbul Bucket List that day.  I practiced my breathing, and eventually my patience was rewarded and I got to stump on through the fairytale-like Gate of Salutation, above, and into the Second Courtyard of the Topkapi Palace Complex.

A Topkapi Palace ticket costs 25 lira.  Because the palace's harem is one of the most beautiful and popular spots on the grounds, they naturally make you pay and extra 15 lira to see it.  Which makes a visit to the Topkapi Palace a slight extravagance at 40 lira.  But the harem is worth it, and in for a penny, you know.

I swung by and went through the harem first.  It was pretty impressive.

Interesting bit of trivia:  "harem" in Arabic means "forbidden."  The harem, despite the sexy connotations the word has been given in Western culture, was nothing more than the private apartments for the Sultan and his (largish) family.  And, okay, a bunch of female slaves and eunuchs,  but according to Rick Steves, the Sultan was allowed a maximum of four wives and four girlfriends, who were largely selected for him by his mother and existing wives/girlfriends.  I mean, certainly the man still had no shortage of female company after a hard day's work, but the reality of the harem was still a very different place than the picture painted by Byron's Don Juan.

After the harem, I walked through the various buildings in the third and fourth courtyards.  It was pretty crowded, and the more popular buildings had yet more lines of tourists with varying degrees of sunburn, slowly shuffling forward an inch at a time, in order to get their fifteen seconds of fame with this famous diamond or that famous dagger.  I waited in what lines I had patience for, which wasn't much.  I mostly circled around the outside of the ring, trying to get glimpses of the priceless artifacts over hats and between elbows.  Unfortunately, most of the Very Famous buildings did not allow photos inside.

View of the Bosphorus from the Treasury.

The Third Courtyard

Unsurprisingly, what I enjoyed most was the (least crowded) Fourth Courtyard and the several small but beautiful kiosks there.  No famous daggers inside, but any of these would be a simply perfect place to lounge away a hot summer afternoon.  Preferably with some wine and a nargile, of course.

Tulip garden, slightly past its peak.

I think this last picture is the Baghdad Pavilion  built by extra-fearsome Sultan Murat IV so he could have a quiet getaway from his tough-guy image and read some poetry.  Gotta love it.

The guidebooks were right, and even though one of the main features ended up being closed (the kitchens, repurposed as galleries), it still took me about two and a half hours to do my full circuit.  This included all the time waiting in various lines (but not the ticket line outside) and also some quality moments resting on benches.  The guidebooks are also right about this being an absolute Istanbul Must-See.  I enjoyed the Topkapi Palace immensely, even with the giant stupid wait to get in and the thronging masses once I was finally inside.  Utterly beautiful, and a fascinating insight into a very different culture.  I took my time with my dog-eared guidebook tucked under my arm, and even if such meticulous sightseeing is not your thing, I recommend it for a place like this.  I got so much more out of my experience by reading about each part as I was seeing it -- like that little bit about Murat IV!

And so passed the Sunday where I officially ended my Istanbul Hermitage and re-entered the grotty touristy backpackery world.  Five days later I would be off to weird and alien Cappadocia!

The present is stationary, but the future is in motion!

Hello internets.

First, something very important.  It's May 1.  This means it's the official two-year anniversary of my new life. Two years ago today, I landed in Tbilisi airport in the dead of night and had absolutely not the foggiest inkling of how wonderful, crazy, frustrating, scary, and all around in-fucking-credible my life was about to become.

But snapping back to the present, it's been pretty quiet on this old page recently.  This time, my reasons for silence are pretty simple.  I have not been doing anything, not one single thing, that is worth blogging about.

This is tragic, for so many reasons.  For one thing, it's completely unlike me.  The last time I was this lethargic, I had a mystery illness that was sapping both my energy and my appetite, and made it hurt to breathe.  I have no such excuses this time.  To make matters worse, I recently had a five-day weekend, and what did I do with it?  Nothing.   Not one single, solitary thing.  I don't think I even finished a novel.  Five whole, free days, and not only did I not travel, I barely even left the house.

I had wanted to go to Cappadocia, but I put off booking or even researching until the very last minute, and then got myself totally overwhelmed by both the cost and the planning required.  Yeah, Cappadocia is a whole region.  It's large, it's incredibly remote, and guess what? -- people there know they're sitting on a tourism goldmine, and they charge you for it.  I did not end up going to Cappadocia.

However, the small bit of good that has come out of this weird ennui is that I promised myself it was going to be the very last time five free days wasted away like that.  So this time I started my planning properly, weeks ahead.  I have a 4-day weekend coming up May 10.  And guess what?  As of this afternoon, I have both a plane ticket AND a reserved dorm bed at Shoestring Cave House.  W00t Woot.

I'm pretty excited, and I really hope that both the anticipation and the energy shot of actually seeing something amazing will kick the last of this lethargy away from me.

But, believe it or not, Cappadocia is NOT the most exciting thing on my horizon!  While researching flights, I also decided to look into my ticket home.  I had a vague idea of stopping off somewhere in Western Europe for a few days before humping it all the way across the Atlantic.  I considered places all over.  Prague, Budapest, Bucharest, Dublin, Vienna, Berlin, Munich... the only real requirements were that it be a new passport stamp and not too terrifically budget-busting, which is why I did not consider Switzerland.

Then I had a little lightning-strike epiphany, and decided to see how much it would cost to fly to Cairo.

So, um... yeah.  Guess where I'm going in June???

This time, excited does not even cover it.

I've visited a lot of places these past two years and there have been a fair few I've introduced with some version of "I've wanted to go here my whole life."  Of course, that was almost never literally true.  I didn't know about these places for my whole life.  It's impossible to want to a go to a place if you have no idea it exists.  But when it comes to Egypt, "I've wanted to go there for my whole entire life" is about the most truth that statement is ever going to see.

Again, not my whole life.  Not the diaper era, natch.  But pretty much right around the time I started realizing that my desires to visit Thundera and Eternia were very likely never going to happen, we studied Ancient Egypt for the first time in school.  I was instantly, completely, hooked.

And yes, I realize that this might not be the very best moment in all-time everness to visit Egypt.  I'm fairly positive my Mom wants to smack me about the head until I fall unconscious and she can tie me up until I miss my flight.  But I cleverly avoid her machinations by being in another country!

All I can say is that I'll be careful.  I'll do my research.  I'll plan.  I'll know where the American Embassy is.  I'll keep my head down and dress modestly.  I'll go on guided tours.  I won't crash any Egyptian frat parties and challenge them to Beer Pong with Death Cup.

This is without doubt one of the crazier things I've decided to do.  And I can't wait.

Then, after one amazing week of staring, totally star-struck, at the Great Pyramids and the Sphinx, I will fly home to Virginia.  And I will be there for a glorious day and a half before getting on another plane (one-way ticket again!) to Pensacola, Florida.  I will have a brand-new baby nephew to start spoiling.

Oh yeah, and then at some point after that, I'm getting myself up to Maine somehow, because my parents just closed on a cabin by a lake.

My life does not suck.

Somewhere in the midst of all that, I have to figure out where I am going next.