Leave the Path
Archive for the 'Cappadocia' Category
05 14th, 2006
Back from Cappadocia, at the house in Ankara. Today was, if possible, even better than yesterday. First of all, I went to bed at midnight, and slept comfortably until 9 am. That’s the first full night I’ve gotten in days, and it made a huge difference. Breakfast was also spectacular, a full buffet of Turkish delicacies (olives, fresh bread, a loose jam, brown eggs, cheeses, yenidunya fruits, yogurt, tea, sausage, and the list goes on) served in the charming cave dining room of the hotel. We checked out, and our first attraction of the day was the underground city.
This place was fascinating, but impossible to photograph adequately. More than 4 stories deep, the city is a labyrinth of sleeping chambers, kitchens, and storage spaces, with a ventilation shaft running down it, with fresh water at the bottom as a well. And it’s absolutely enormous. It is known that certain people lived here in the past, including Christians fleeing persecution in Rome in the early AD years, but there’s nothing to carbon date, and some experts have guessed that the whole thing (which once housed thousands of people) would have taken at least a thousand years to complete. It’s absolutely mind-boggling, and also terrifying for the claustrophobic. We had to buy tickets, but guides aren’t required. This is actually a problem for two reasons, aside from the lack of information: 1) you could easily loose someone in a huge, empty city underground, and then lose yourself looking for them, and 2) there’s no regulation of the groups, many of them made up of school children, and so at some points we found ourselves in very small spaces, with no head room and dozens of loud strangers. I’m not claustrophobic, and I found this nerve-wracking. Some members of our group, less experienced with caves perhaps, became singularly uncomfortable in the tiny tunnels, with no way to go back or forward. Luckily, no one had a panic attack today. There are, of course, no warnings about what to expect, and I’m sure that the occasional unfortunate visitor has come out in tears.
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Our second stop today was a valley, or, really, a gorge made into the same soft rock. I wasn’t excited at first. Even when I saw it from above, it only seemed mildly interesting. There was a big long cut, with trees at the bottom, running through the otherwise smooth, grassy land. We took a few photos. It was okay.
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Then Emre, Hanzade, Ali and I walked down to the bottom. It was like time-travel, with no words or photos enough to describe how strange and also pleasant it was to descend into this forgotten world. There are 1900 year old churches in little cubbies along the trail, literally a half dozen of them, and an uncountable number of little home/storage/grave holes. Some are way up on the cliffs, so high that they seem impossible to reach. At the bottom, is a half-kilometer wide stretch of green, with a clear, picturesque stream running through it, rich with fish and frogs and exotic flowers. The trail wound around the stream, the ubiquitous birch trees, and some rocks, and we climbed and walked for more than an hour. We saw birds, millions of flowers, huge lizards, wild wheat, and Ali saw a karakal, which I most unfortunately missed. Emre leapt from rock to rock, and periodically ran ahead (yes, ran) to take photos. We were all in very good spirits, even after misplacing the trail a couple times, and a couple stings by a local plant. This valley, tucked between two mountains and blessed with a big stream, is isolated from the harsh winters and winds that make the rest of the landscape bare. It was all too easy to imagine the valley as a bustling pre-historic city, with fields and planted trees and children climbing deftly over the rocks from cave to cave. Even today, the park service lets some local people farm the rich soil, there, and seeing them was almost as interesting as the natural and historic beauty. It was absolutely fantastic.
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At the end of our trail, about the time my legs got tired, we met up with Volkan and Nurten, who thankfully drove the car around. We all had lunch at a little café next to the stream (I had an excellent shis kebab, and lots of water). The stream was filled with frogs, which were croaking wildly and hoping in and out of the water. Local boys with donkeys raced back and forth, sometimes trying to catch the attention of tourists, for photo ops and possibly loose change. In May, at least, life seemed very easy here, and wonderfully beautiful.
I found myself with many questions after seeing all of these neat things “Who made the caves? Why? How long ago? Have they been constantly inhabited? How many are still used? Are they really safe? (Some have already crumbled apart) How are they being protected? How long will they last? What is special about this region geographically? Why is it like that? Are the volcanoes still active? Why haven’t other people heard about something so completely awesome? Emre, canim, why can’t you answer these questions? Didn’t you study this in school? (Thanks for the book, Hanzade.) What do you mean it doesn’t have any information? Haven’t people studied this? Oh, sorry, I didn’t realize you were sleeping. Well, now that you’re awake… Okay, Okay, I’ll stop asking questions now.”
We also stopped at an old church, today. Not too old, actually, by comparison. There were no signs (the Turkish government only recently started being interested in cultural tourism outside of Istanbul) and closed for renovation. The building had some gothic elements, and the stone was very expertly cut, so I would guess that it was no older than 14th century (?) but probably newer. It’s been abandoned for years, though. I wonder who made it, and where they went.
We drove home by the same path that we came, and I watched for farmers in their fields. Most farmers have tractors, but only small ones, and many things are done by hand. Interestingly, more than half of the field work is done by women, and almost all of them wore long sleeves and a head scarf, even on a warm day. For light-to-olive-skinned people, working in a shade-less field, I think this is more practical than religious in origin. I can’t be sure, but the loose cotton scarf seemed to me to be a practical alternative to a straw hat. In the villages, there were more men than women, and all of the shop-keepers and waiters were male. The cultural division of labor is clearly different than in Western Europe, but I don’t want to be too hasty in saying that it’s bad. I didn’t see enough to tell.
Interestingly, children approached us almost everywhere we went, not begging, but trying to do little things, like sell dolls, or be a guide. I really wanted to talk to them, but my Turkish isn’t very good yet, and no one else seemed very interested. Maybe next time. I like that children have spare time to do this, and also that their parents feel comfortable leaving them alone. I imagine that a childhood with a donkey and a hobby of talking to tourists would really be a fun one.
We also saw some puppies, which were, of course, adorable.
05 13th, 2006
We did go to the bazaar yesterday, and we got a couple of things. Most of the things for sale were factory produced in India or China, unfortunately. Oddly, in my opinion, this flea-market type place has escalators and elevators, so the owners must make a pretty good profit. There were also fake copies of every popular brand clothing, ever, and bootleg copies of DVDs sold from a big bin. There were some special street foods, though, like simit, which I particularly like, and something like potato crepes.
The only problem was that I don’t like being accosted by shop keepers every time I look at something, and I don’t know enough Turkish to politely ask them to leave me alone. Nurten was very helpful, though. And she’s been studying English, which is encouraging, and she helped me to find a couple of nice things. My Turkish is limited, but it’s good enough that we can be alone without being uncomfortable, which is really nice.
Later Emre and I also went for a walk- I hadn’t realized how many shops and cafes and such there are near Emre’s parents’ house. It’s actually a nice little neighborhood. I like the dual-use of buildings. We’ll have to explore more next week. In the evening, we had dinner with Hanzade and Volkan, again, and went out for ice cream in the rented van. Emre and I stayed up talking afterwards with Nurten. I can understand all of some conversations in Turkish, if I really listen (but they have to be about food, traveling, or school, because that’s all of my vocabulary). When I got tired or the subject changed, though, it was almost impossible. Emre and Nurten had some sort of deep discussion of society and politics in Turkey, but I couldn’t quite follow it, and went to bed. It was already very late.
This morning we left for Cappadocia at 7:00. Volkan rented a “transporter van” yesterday to carry us. From the name, I expected something simple and practical. In fact, it’s a short Mercedes-Benz limo, cleverly disguised as a very small minivan. There are swiveling leather seats, a tv, a second DVD/CD player, fold-out tables for games and snacks, curtains for privacy, and a mini-fridge. Curiously, however, there are very few cup holders and one less seat belt than seats. Apparently these vans are usually chauffeured, rented to politicians and celebrities who want a comfortable way to travel within the city on business. I think it’s a little silly to have a DVD player in a van, but most of the other features have come in handy, and it got great gas mileage and was a very comfortable trip for all 6 of us.
As we drove out of Ankara, concrete and planted pine trees gave way to a rough, dry countryside. At this time of year, the hills are covered with grass, and seemed to me that they begged for horses. I didn’t see any horses, though. I saw one donkey and more sheep and cows and shepherds. Interestingly, very few people have fences for livestock, which means more work for them, but a prettier landscape for the rest of us. Actually, there weren’t many people at all. Mostly it was just these fuzzy, treeless hills, rolling off to the horizon. The whole timeless scene made me want to right a fairy tale. None of my pictures, taken “a la Mattie” (through the window of a moving car) do it justice.
Eventually we made it to Cappadocia, via the salt-producing lake and a big volcanic mountain that Emre really likes. I had heard of Cappadocia before this trip. The images of stone dwellings are famous, and according to my Turkish book, aliens land here in flying saucers and then enjoy mercimek soup and yogurt (they’re vegetarian, of course). What I didn’t realize, though, was that people still live in the carved stone buildings. They’re part of the center of several little towns. In fact, our hotel is in a little cave, dug into the soft rock. It’s quite neat, and appeals to the tree-climbing kid inside me. There’s historically important stuff absolutely everywhere, including a 1000-year-old chapel in our hotel. There’s so much of it, in fact, that people aren’t even trying to preserve most of it, though there are a few good parks.
In one such park, Goreme, we saw the ancient churches and frescos. You can climb around in them and touch things. It’s really awesome, almost surreal. The frescoes are 10th-15th century, not created by the earliest Christians, some of whom did live there. They are masterpieces, though, painted on the rough rock. Unfortunately, some unkind person scratched the eyes out of many of the figures, but on the whole they are well protected, and clearly not destroyed in a systematic way by the Ottomans, who later controlled the area. Some of them also had names carved along the bottom, which made me furious. They eyes, I know, were done long ago, before this land became part of a park. The people of this area are only very recently widely literate, however, and some of the names, are European, like “Sarah” and “Hank.” These were, I think, recent vandalism, dating after the official park status. Tourists shouldn’t vandalize, obviously, but I also feel like the park should have had more people more actively guarding these sites. Groups of teenagers wondered around unsupervised, and some of the caves had no-one official watching them, and the few guards were generally apathetic. I know such measures are expensive, especially getting a system of oversight, but these are priceless, in my estimation, and should be protected like national jewels, to be the profit of future generations.
We also went to a pottery shop and tried our hands at a wheel. I accidentally splattered clay all over myself, though the turning was fun. The toilet I visited to tidy up was the most disgusting place I’ve ever been. In the city, the toilets are superbly clean, but at these tourist places, they’re quite disgusting, with water on the floor, no paper, no soap, horrible smell, and privately owned by people who charge, anyway. Nurten (rightrully) got after the proprietor of a private toilet because the facilities were so bad. She even used the magic Turkish word “Ayip,” which translates to “shame on you,” but the Turkish equivalent carries much more power. (A note for those traveling in rural Turkey, carry the following things with you at all times: Coins, toilet paper, and sanitizing hand wipes.)
On a whim, we visited a UFO museum (which my friends from Turkish class should appreciate) It was actually more of an amateur archive, filled with magazine clippings and a couple of paper-maché replicas of stereotypical aliens. We were, unsurprisingly, the only people there.
Later we watched the sun set, eating pumpkin seeds on a cliff. Near the end of the day I started to get very tired, exhausted really, and so I was grumpy. I had some tea and a shower, which helped, but I’m still very tired. I am impressed with Cappadocia, and would like to write more, but I’m not sure my eyes will stay open.
