After the nightmare bus trip we were pretty shattered.  We found our agency who told us that there was a problem with the hotel we booked, but not to worry, he would put us in another for the same price.  He laughed when Marcelo asked about air conditioning and told us they didn’t yet have the technology to put air conditioning in a cave.

Göreme is a tiny, tiny town that we fell in love with immediately.  We ended up spending more time here than we’d planned, due to its sheer awesomeness and spent most of our time chilling out in the sun with a cup of the gorgeous elma çai (apple tea), playing backgammon and taking in the surreal, fairytale like landscape.  We jumped on a guided tour around the town and were taken to an ancient Underground city which went around 55 metres down.  We crawled through tiny staircases and dark claustrophobia inducing spaces to see a church, kitchen and other rooms.  Some of it was pitch black.  We spent a while wandering through a Ihlara Valley which was fairly boring and our last stop was to an old city built into the cliff face.

This was one of the most magical places I’ve ever been and we spent hours wandering around carefully carved houses, some of which were 2 stories or more.  We saw the most amazing monastery’s and churches which still had a bit of frescos left in them.  We were told that the women here are the ones that do the hard labour out in the fields, whilst the men sit in cafes smoking shisha and selling product all day.

To end the day, we went to a “Turkish Night” to watch the Whirling Dervishes and Belly Dancers strut their stuff.  As usual, I got dragged up on stage, I knew it was going to happen.  There comes a point in a night like this where a dancer makes eye contact and I KNOW I’m being singled out for something ridiculous.  I had to play the part of a bride in some traditional dance with some random Asian guy being made to play the groom.  He was terrified.  I found it all hilarious.  We drunk a lot more Raki and the most awful, but free, wine before catching a life back to our hostel with the dancers.

That night, quite drunk, we found a tiny black and white kitten playing with a feather on the road.  It was so, so cute we both fell completely in love with him and he ended up following us back to the hostel.  He stayed the night curled up in my arm after wrestling Marcelo for hours.  Because we’re suckers, Marcelo went out to the shop in the morning and bought him a can of tuna which he wrestled out of Marcelos hands and ate the WHOLE THING in about 3 minutes.  We called him Malek, after the hostel we were staying at.

We went out during the day for some more Apple Tea and backgammon and returned home a few hours later to a tiny, yowling kitten grumpy that we’d been out so long, much to our delight.  We went out again later in the evening to meet up with a friend we’d made on the tour and we saw Malek wander off, back to his home we assume, and we didn’t see him again which was horribly heartbreaking.

It was about this point in the trip where we both got really sick from all the foreign food.  Marcelo had a  traumatic experience when he ran off to the public toilets and they, well they just don’t use toilet paper in these countries.  They have a jug and a tap instead.  I think he used up half a bottle of alcohol gel washing his hands and we carried toilet paper on us after that.

On our last day, we walked for miles out to see the Fairy Chimneys which Göreme is so famous for.  We hitched a ride back with a local who insisted on taking us out for kebabs (AGAIN) and speaking English through the Waiter who explained his views on religion and politics in the most long and slow conversation ever.  We left Göreme missing it already and made our way to Turkeys border for our Syrian adventure.

Cappadoccia Photos