Kapadokya: Failed Mission Accomplished

This weekend I finally went to Kapadokya to the cities of Göreme and Neveşehir. We stayed in Göreme in a nice and cheap hostel for one night--our trip was rather short, but one of my roommates had a midterm on Friday so we couldn't leave until Saturday. Initially, after our failed attempt to got to Kapadokya during the first Bayram during our first month's stay in Turkey, I thought to myself stubbornly that I will intentionally never go to Kapadokya, as did my roommate. However, part of me still wanted to go--as it is an incredible natural wonder that you don't see too often in this world. ...so we went.

We enjoyed the ability to be last minute in Turkey by simply walking and taking the metro to the otogar, where by luck we caught a bus that was leaving in 10 minutes. We tried to bargain, and the guy wasn't budging. 25 lira isn't a lot, but I brought up the fact I can get to Istanbul for 20. The guy still wasn't budging, but his justification is funny. He said in broken Turkish-English, "But Istanbul has many companies go many often, but Kapadokya, not so many." I then replied, oh so you are a monopoly so you think you can charge whatever price you want? I was kind of being a jerk, but it was so true. He tried to say the bus was full, but it was barely half full. We ended up paying it though because we didn't have time to spare. On the bus ride there we ran into some Bilkent ESN students. Turkey is a small world I guess.

So we got to Kapadokya at night and managed to find an empty hostel--actually everything there was quite empty. The hostel we stayed at was very nice for the price--the beds were very comfortable. The lady at the hostel was rather chatty, but she did have lots of advice. She kept trying to get us to go on a tour that showed many churches, but we aren't really tour people, and neither my roommates nor I are Christian, so we really weren't interested in churches, especially ruins. (Ruins became a point of contention for us after seeing so many in Turkey!)

Gozleme

That night we went and had gozleme in an outside gazebo part of a restaurant that had been recommended to us. My Indian roommate got really annoyed and skeptical after the waiter boy brought her Earl grey when she asked for Turkish chay. Not to mention before that we watched him light the wood stove by putting in wood, then plastic, then using a set of plastic gloves as a fire starter! What a pleasant smell...... In all my years I have never seen anything quite like that! People can bag on the US for being not green, and I cannot speak for the entire US, but at least the West Coast is pretty green and good about recycling. I rarely see containers for recycling in Turkey, let alone garbage cans! I guess they just burn their garbage...

The next morning we got up to a lovely Turkish breakfast.

It was rather chilly in Kapadokya, but not as cold as I expected it to be. Kapadokya and Göreme were particularly empty, as not many tourists are in Turkey in this time of year--which made sense why so many people were trying to sell us on tours. It was kind of nice that way though--it wasn't too crowded or touristie.

We walked around the town and took some pictures, then took a bus to the underground city in Nevesheyhir.

We were not too impressed. Luckily we got to use our student museum card, so it was free. Two old men tried really hard on two separate occasions to sell us way overpriced and unnecessary tours into the cave, but they had no luck. It was slightly amusing though. Inside the cave was so horrible though. It reminded me of my high school spelunking trip--which I did enjoy--but with about 200 Asian tourists, all of which would randomly stop, stare, and take pictures while blocking exits/entrances. It was quite clostrophobic, and my roommates and I grew tired of it quickly. The air was also not so good in the deeper parts, and our lungs started getting irritated. We saw the "kitchen" and the "wine seller" though. It was kind of interesting, but not really my cup of tea. I think we did it in less than 10 minutes--the tour was like an hour tour though! Perhaps it would have been more enjoyable if there had not been so many obnoxious tourists.

THANK GOD WE GOT OUT OF THAT PLACE! Now...to wait for a bus.

interesting tiles...all in Arabic!

OMG A GARBAGE CAN!?

After that we caught the bus back to Göreme, but instead of going all the way, we stopped near the castle, where we went inside a ferry chimney, also overfilled with Asian tourists, but this time Korean. I couldn't believe, when they asked how much for something, they told them the price in dollars! Whenever someone quotes me a price in dollars or euros I pretty much walk out because I know they are trying to rip me off. The ferry chimneys are really pretty to look at though. From there we hiked down through the pigeon valley, which took about 40 minutes to an hour. That was really beautiful. I really wish I could have spent more time there, perhaps even have had a picnic, but we were all hungry and tired by then, and we wanted to get back into the city because we had limited time. It was really incredible though---we were the only ones out there as well.

...evidence of the presence of Korean tourists...

Ferry Chimneys!

inside ferry chimney!

interesting decor...

OMG A TURKEY IN TURKEY!??!?

THE BEGINNING OF PIGEON VALLEY HIKE!

howling dog...that scared me.

ok the dog is far, but I was still nervous. :P

dogs plural. scared yet? ...why not?

BEST BEWARE OF DOG SIGN EVERRRRRRR!

As usual...

Fated colors...

After that we ate at a place called farmville! YES--FARMVILLE! Likely named after the infamous facebook application as well judging by the menu. It was good and cheap. We have gozleme. There were some really obnoxious American military guys with girls outside. ...we saw them riding around on ATVs later like jackasses. There were too many of those in the city, even for off-tourist season--I shutter to think what tourist season is like.

We also watched a guy get harassed by a cat with his wife in the outside part of the restaurant. It was a big orange cat--it was quite entertaining.

There was also some kind of squash dessert making thing going on...

Later we went back to our hostel, did some last minute shopping, and then ate a apple cinnamon borek. We sipped chai for a while, and then the restaurant owner brought out a bunch of Turkish restaurants for us to try to play. We pretty much sucked at it, but it was fun. We took the night bus home, and once again we saw Kapadokya's beauty in the dark! It was so lovely lit up in the dark. Like a magical world.

On the bus ride home we saw weird news--as usual. Apparently there was a crazy riot in Istanbul over a sportsgame that resulted in massive police brutality and some stabbings. On top of that a bull was loose on the Istanbul freeway, and it took hours of hilarious failed attempts to finally capture it. It was pretty funny to watch.

One thing I would have liked to do is a hot air balloon tour--but at the same time 300 dollars or even 200 is a bit out of my price range as a student....but if you want to do hot air balloon tours, I guess Kapadokya is the place to go! :)