THE SPECIAL LAYERS OF TURKEY’S CAPPADOCIA - PART 1
Which came first? The fairy tale or Cappadocia’s landscapes? Despite its mythical look, science estimates the beginning of the landscape back to about 14 million years, so probably the landscapes. This didn’t stop locals and travellers from lovingly referring to these rock formations as fairy chimneys. But more on that a bit later.
An impulse decision.
As I’ve probably mentioned in previous blogs, UAE’s public holidays are a bit of a gamble. It’s never for certain and is heavily dependent on the moon. We thus always put in leave and hope for the best. The gamble paid off quite well this time and we were left with a few extra days. I refused to lose out on such an opportunity and quickly made work of it. My first choice was to return to Seychelles (read why here), but its price tag was a bit hefty for an impulse trip. T and I jumped a few ideas around and landed on Turkey. Cappadocia’s been on our bucket list, and we decided to connect in Istanbul and head to the fairy-like landscapes.
A week later, we were on our way.
Where and what is Cappadocia?
A common misconception is that Cappadocia is a town in Turkey. It’s a historical and geographical region in central Turkey. After a volcanic eruption millions of years ago, the lava, ash and tuff solidified into rock. The distinct fairy chimneys were created by erosion due to the inconsistent hardness of each of the volcanic layers.
Cappadocia has a rich and (to me) unexpected history. These soft volcanic rock formations were easily carved and used as shelters, churches, and underground cities. They even carved little pigeon holes for pigeons to breed in. This benefited civilization by giving them droppings, which they used for farming; and the egg shells were used for plastering walls before murals were painted.
There are several Towns and villages. Göreme is one of the more popular towns and is considered the central hub. Towns and villages such as Ürgüp, Avanos, Uçhisar and Nevşehir surround Göreme, but with a car it’s closer than expected.
We stayed in Göreme for the larger part of our trip.
Göreme.
During the discovery of this unique landscape, tourism started to climb in the latter half of the 20th century, and today is almost exclusively tourism-driven. The amount of restaurants and curio shops should be a clue to this.
A la Mode Hotel.
I hate to admit how much time I’ve spent looking for the perfect hotel for viewing the hot air balloons. Although a cave room can be quirky, we prefer windows and natural light. The cave hotels with a bit of natural light were either fully booked or out of budget. I can’t remember how we ended up at A la Mode Hotel, but we loved it. And here’s my traveler’s tip: It doesn’t really matter where in Göreme you stay; chances are good you’ll see some balloons. How close the balloons come to you depends on the wind, but in my opinion, if you go outside, you’ll see loads and loads and loads of balloons.
The rooms were a standard kind of hotel room inside a bungalow-looking building, but the shower, breakfast and pool were exceptional. The property was perfectly kept and the staff super friendly, although at times difficult to communicate. On this note, everybody was always super friendly and helpful.
The Hot Air Balloons.
I’m unsure where and how to start this chapter. Obviously this was one of the main reasons for being on our bucket list. But never in our wildest dreams did we know what a treat we were in for. Just the amount of balloons was uncomprehending. We tried to count at one stage but lost count when we reached 70. The birds were the other fascination. There were so many of them around the balloons; we speculate it’s due to the heat. The mornings were quite chilly, thus thinking the heat from the burners might be the appeal.
As an amateur photographer, I always get a buzz to capture the amazing places we go, but my excitement here almost freaked out my Apple Watch’s heart rate monitor. It’s probably one of the best places to feel good about your photography. It felt so easy…
Photo principles made easy here.
The landscape is a stunning for- or background – Backdrop check
The balloons go up at sunrise – magic light check
The balloons, fairy chimneys and volcano all have triangular shapes – Triangles check
The tourist inside the baskets and as spectators look teeny tiny next to the balloons – Scale check
Lots of dust during landing – Subject separation check
I know I’m starting to sound cocky about my photos, and although I love a few of them, there was no way of capturing the amount around us and the true size.
We’ve spent two mornings on the viewing deck of our hotel in Göreme, two mornings on the top of Love Valley, and one below Love Valley. I took way too many photos which took me forever to edit. I then tasked T to narrow it down more to avoid repetition. To me, the amount that didn’t make the post felt brutal, but there’s probably still too many for a blog post. I decided to post them anyway; since it’s our blog and we can do what we want to.
More to come.
We went a bit bananas with the number of photos, thus decided to continue in part 2. I’ll tell you about the chaos when the balloons come in for landing and why we didn’t go on the balloons ourselves. We go on a day tour; to discover so much more Cappadocia has to offer, and we stay somewhere unexpectedly good for our soul.
Wandering off now…
T & Me
