Farewell Cappadocia

So ... what does one do on one's last night in Turkey?

Shall I clean? Hmmm ... nope, don't think so. When the university gave me this flat, it was utterly, staggeringly filthy. I still remember the two month-old pastries in the oven, and the rancid smell in the fridge that took several months and a prodigious amount of fresh lime to get rid of. So I'll pass on that option.

Should I have an early night? Well, yeah, I probably should ... but tomorrow I'm embarking on a two-week adventure, starting in Prague and heading eastwards. So, you know, putting your head down at 10pm is pretty much out of the question when you've got that on your mind.

I think, instead, I'll share with you some of my favourite pics from the fabulously weird giant depression in the Great Anatolian Plain known as Cappadocia.

ROAD ACROSS THE ANATOLIAN PLAIN (with bonus volcano)

Somewhere near Nevşehir, Turkey, 28.10.13

Some context first: a year ago I moved from Ankara to a city called Kayseri, which is essentially a dusty-blown collection of ugly high-rises more or less in the middle of Anatolia.

A charming, engaging city Kayseri is not. But it does have a couple of advantages, of which probably the biggest is this: jump on a bus, and and hour later you jump off in Göreme, right in the heart of the Cappadocian action.  

TOWNSHIP WTH 'FAIRY CHIMNEYS' 

Göreme, Turkey, 28.10.13

The first time I came down here, I was still living in Ankara. I found Göreme a bit touristy at first, with its über-backpackery vibe, but outside the town, the scenery was mindblowing. And I was aware that, in spending a couple of days here, I'd barely scratched the surface.

POTTERY WORKSHOP, ANYONE?

Cappadocia, Turkey, 27.10.13

Then I accepted the job offer in Kayseri, and suddenly I had this amazing spectacle virtually in my back yard. I believe that's what they call a "perk".

So once I'd settled in to Kayseri life (more or less), Cappadocia then became a kind of 'weekend getaway'. I made many trips down there, including one for New Year's Eve. It was a chilly New Year, but memorable :-)

NEW YEAR IN GÖREME

Cappadocıa, Turkey, 01.01.15

Of course, what kept drawing me back there were the incredible landscapes, including the one below at a place called Paşabağ. (You say that like "Pasha-BAAA".)

The remarkable thing about this particular part of Cappadocia was that I'd never intended to go there, but I was with a group last October and one of us (my friend Kate) decided we had to go to a place called 'Love Valley'. The valley got its name, so the story goes, from the fact that the rock formations there look like erect penises - so then 'love' was thought to be a suitable euphemism for what these formations made most visitors think of.

PENISY?

Paşabağ, Cappadocıa, 18.10.14

The thing is, Kate got it wrong, and we ended up NOT going to the Love Valley, but turning up in this place instead. We were walking around going "Do these look like penises to you?", and arguing back and forth as to the degree of resemblance, until months later we found out that we were nowhere near the place we'd meant to visit.

Still ... I think some of these are at least vaguely phallic :-)

VIEW FROM THE VALLEY'S END

Paşabağ, Cappadocıa, 28.11.14

But of course, the obvious question to ask here is "How did the landscape get that way?"

Well, the answer isn't as easy to find as you might think. Cappadocia's towns are, unsurprisingly, awash with souvenir shops, which are in turn awash with pictorial guides to the region. But all the ones I thumbed through were almost completely silent when it came to explaining the origins of these bizarre and beautiful configurations of ancient stone.

CANYON NEAR PAŞABAĞ 

 Cappadocıa, Turkey, 28.11.14

What I have managed to glean, though, is this:

Basically, there are two volcanoes either side of the region (which measures about 60kms end to end), and a smaller one in the middle. About 60 million years ago, all three of them erupted at once, spilling out loads and loads of molten material.

VIEW OVER THE 'ROSE VALLEY' 

 Göreme, Cappadocıa, 28.11.14 

By some weird accident of geology, there were two separate layers of material deposited. The first layer was what geologists call tuff stone, though this seems a bit of an odd name for it, because it's actually rather soft and girly – at least as far as rock goes. (I've hit my head on it a few times, and it's hard enough to really hurt!) On top of that, and a bit later, came a harder coating of heavy basalt.

CONE-LIKE FORMATIONS 

 Near Göreme, Cappadocıa, 27.10.13

So what happened was that the weight of the basalt pushed downwards and broke parts of the tuff stone away. You got these huge collapses which created canyons and, in some places, vertical columns of rock. But most remarkably, in a few places a little bit of basalt would remain on top. That would create the initial conditions for what are now known as Cappadocia's 'fairy chimneys'.

Since that rather dramatic event, much subtler processes like erosion have been shaping the landscape gradually. In places like the Rose Valley (above), this has resulted in the ripples or waves. In other areas like Paşabağ, the basalt has eroded less than the tuff, producing columns with 'hats' on top.

USE YOUR BASALT AS A HAT 

 Love Valley, Cappadocıa, 03.10.14

If Douglas Adams had seen this place (and he might have – I actually don't know), it would surely have confirmed his theory that the universe is largely driven by the Force of Improbability :-)

ANCIENT HOMES (AND MODERN RENOVATIONS) IN ROCK

 Ürgüp, Cappadocıa, 4.10.14

But then, some time between 9,000 and 4,000 years ago, ancient peoples began to inhabit this area. They carved their homes, sometimes inside the chimneys (accessible by rope ladder), and other times into huge rock massifs like the one above.

INSIDE A ROCK HOUSE, PERVING ON THE NEIGHBOURS 

Paşabağ, Cappadocıa, 18.10.14

This added a further twist to the Cappadocia aesthetic – especially when one considers how they got their fuel. All around the region you see these homes, with tiny little shelves carved into the outside walls. These were created so that pigeons would roost there, and their excrement would be burned for warmth and (it's thought) cooking. 

Hence the term "pigeon holes". They were invented here.

PIGEON HOLES

Ürgüp, Cappadocıa, 29.11.14

Much later came late pagan and then Christian communities, the latter of whom built a network of subterranean cities, accommodating thousands of people and allowing them to escape persecution. You can tour several of these, and more are being discovered all the time – in fact, just this year two Turkish kids fell down a hole in Kayseri and started walking along a subterranean passageway, only to emerge over 30kms closer to Cappadocia than where they started! 

ROLL AWAY THE ROCK TO REVEAL THIS WEEK'S MAJOR PRIZE!

Derinkuyu Underground city, Cappadocıa, 27.10.13

 Then finally came the Turks, bringing Islamic culture to the region, along with distinctive mud-brick architecture and, eventually, balloons. 

BALLOONS OVER THE CITY

Göreme, Cappadocıa, 06.03.15

These are ridiculously expensive to hire, and they periodically crash and kill people. But seeing them rise up over the towns and ply their way through the valleys has undeniably become part of the 'Cappadocia experience'.

BALLOONS ASCEND FROM THE TOWN OF ÇAVUŞİN 

 Love Valley, Cappadocıa, 03.10.14

So there you have it. That's been my ongoing discovery of the region which Buzzfeed ranks at no. 9 on its 27 Surreal Places to Visit Before You Die list. As a convenient 'weekender' destination, I don't think I'll ever mange to beat it. So ... Farewell, Cappadocia!