Turkey, Cappadocia

Cave houses in Cappadocia. /Pentax

Cappadocia is an area in central Turkey famous for it´s unusual rock formations and underground cities. Being surrounded by four volcanoes, previous eruptions have left a landscape full of high cone shaped cliffs (called fairy chimneys) that have been left unaffected by erosion. This area became a refuge by Christian people from the 4th to the 11th century and being persecuted they used these caves and underground cities to hide away in. Most of the time they lived above ground, but if necessary they could retreat back under ground for up to six months… Cappadocia is full traces from these Christian peoples cave like life style with valley upon valley with underground cities, fairy chimneys, rock houses and decorated rock churches. It makes an incredible fascinating, beautiful and popular place for hiking. Parts of Star Wars were filmed in this out of this world landscape.

We decided to head for Göreme in Cappadocia, and were quite blown away by the view that met us turning that last corner. It´s unlike any other place we´ve seen. Strange rock formations full of windows and doorways everywhere. Some people still live like this in parts of Turkey. We had to stay one night in one of these hostels built into the rocks!

Arriving in Göreme. /Pentax

The next day we moved to a campsite nearby and we all felt the need to just stay for a couple of nights in one place. This gave us a chance to finally catch up on some well needed car maintenance. We went to a recommended mechanic to change oils and some worn out parts. For a tenth of the price in Sweden these guys were a lot more willing to help us than the guys in Montenegro. Everything was fixed in a couple of hours but due to a power cut Lina´s and Richard´s Defender was stuck high up on the lift…

Facing the option of either remaining in the waiting room for no one knows how long with hungry, tired and fed up children (and parents) or to squeeze all eight of us into one car to go to one of the underground cities, our choice was pretty easy. Carefully we drove one very packed land rover to nearby Derinkuyu, one of the biggest underground cities.

Not for the claustrophobic maybe (Milan turned around with Tanja on the third level) but incredible interesting. Almost crawling on our knees through the narrow aisles and steep steps the rest of us finally reached the bottom. (The ventilation shaft gives you an idea of as how deep down you are). Here somewhere deep underground we decided to leave a geocach, for those interested!

Tanja deep underground in Derinkuyu. /Pentax

With the power back on we finally retrieved our car and headed back to the camping. Only to be met by a familiar Toyota Land Cruiser! Our norweigan friends had found the same village and camp site as us. We also met Nina and Gertz, a friendly german couple who had traveled from Germany to Jordan in their Defender and now were on their way back. We spent the evening talking over a couple of beers. (Nina and Gertz promised to be the first ones to visit our underground Geocach…)

Camping next to a fairy chimney! /Pentax

Time to wash some of the road dust off... /Pentax

In the end we stayed four days in wonderful Göreme and fully rested and anxious to move on, on the 24th we decided it was time to pack up and head further east…