Cappadocia, Land of the Cave Monks, Part 2

Day 2 Cappadocia

In the morning we enjoyed the lavish breakfast spread at the hotel. Our philosophy throughout this time was stuff yourself at breakfast, eat a light lunch on the trail, and eat out for dinner. We sent one our kids in to snap some pictures. There was much more than you see here: varieties of cheese, breads, jams, fruits, vegetables…

Then we set out to explore, heading up Pigeon Valley in the direction of Uchisar, which boasts a castle of rock on top of a hill. All of Cappadocia was like one big playground for our kids, who ran to climb every rock and explore every cave. I’ll let the pictures do some talking. It was hard to stop taking pictures, the landscape being so wild and the caves so intriguing.

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We stopped for lunch at a spot with a nice view back into Pigeon Valley and another parallel valley. And a good view up towards Uchisar castle.

Our youngest lagged behind on the walk up to the castle, so I shot a series of photos as I trailed along with him, “Things That Are Interesting to a Five-Year-Old.” I missed a couple shots too before I realized how many things would catch his attention on the walk.

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The castle was fascinating. The signage said the castle used to be connected to the valleys through long underground tunnels, for purposes of defense and escape. Who carved these caves and tunnels? It may be known, but I never got that down for sure. Certainly, many of those who lived in these caves were monks, as there are many cave churches in the area, many of them decorated with frescoes. The soft rock begs to be carved. Mt Erciyes, which we saw up close in Kayseri, spewed out massive amounts of ash over the years, ash that formed this soft tufa rock.

To the side of Uchisar castle is another hill with enough caves to make it an apartment complex. One of our kids was dying to explore those dwellings too. You see in the picture the eroded steps on the way up. Going up was no problem. And we found inside the upper cave something almost like a spiral staircase, which was rewarding to find. Then it was time to climb down the steep, slippery, eroded staircase. Climbing down is usually harder than ascending and excitement turned to nervousness as each kid inched their way down. I didn’t feel too secure myself. Thankfully, Rebecca and our youngest had stayed below. Once our nerves calmed after making it safely down, the sense of danger added to the sense of excitement and accomplishment.

Then the adventure continued. Below us was a cone with three stories of doors and windows that made exploration irresistible. Interestingly, we found this sign on the side of it. It turns out it was pointing to a place beyond, but this place was also a “Typical Turkish House” of Cappadocia. Many people still live in houses that are at least partially carved into the rock. The whole family made it up to the third story, which was sadly defaced with graffiti. We sang the doxology in the upper room and enjoyed the resonance of the cave’s acoustics.

We met three young Turkish people near the highway and talked for a few minutes. They are from Antalya, which happened to be next on our itinerary. And they currently live in Kirkland, WA my hometown. I should have got their contact information and looked them up next time I visit. They gave us some tips on Antalya and Kas, and we gave them some information about what we had just explored.

I couldn’t resist snapping a picture of this guy. An interesting spot for a nap, eh?

We walked down the highway for a ways, until we spotted a trail down into another valley and something even more important – ice cream bars. Our kids had earned it, with their miles of hiking.

This is a view from our ice cream spot. Notice the footsteps carved high into the rock. That’s how they got around up there.

We stopped by the hotel and headed out to dinner. I enjoyed my chicken with yogurt sauce on top of eggplant. We noticed that the restaurants were mostly empty. The bombings in Turkey have taken their toll on tourism. Tensions between Russia and Turkey have also caused a dramatic dropoff in the number of visitors from Russia. We felt that the lack of tourists was to our benefit. We practically had Cappadocia to ourselves.