Bear Trakker: Day 29: Tuz Golu to Göreme

Waking prior to sunrise, we quickly washed faces and hands, packed the car and vacated the field that we had been camping in. With so many things possible to do in Göreme, and a long drive awaiting the following day, we planned to arrive as early as possible and set-off exploring, even if an early check-in wasn't possible.

Arriving to the Göreme Cave Suites

Retracing our path out of the maze of tractor tracks amidst the crops on the flat between the lake and highway, we found our way out and were on our way toward Göreme before 6am. This was a record for us in terms of both the early departure time, and speed in which we had pulled down the tent and packed up camp.

Once on the highway, Gerle quickly fell asleep in the front passenger seat, and the remaining 120 km or so toward Göreme passed by very quickly. The landscape changed on approach to the city of Nevşehir, the central and major city of the Cappadocia region, with rocky cliffs starting to appear on either side of the road. Tourist signs for underground cities, churches and 'fairy chimneys' also began to appear.

As it was so early, about 7am, we looked initially for somewhere to breakfast to pass a little time before attempting an early check-in, but everything including the petrol stations were closed. We decided to chance our luck and continued toward Göreme. Rounding a bend in the road, we were greeted by the amazing sight that is the moonscape that the Cappadocia region is famous for. We stopped briefly for a few photos, marvelling at this alien landscape, before descending into the Göreme village.

The view upon arrival to Göreme

A preview of the next morning...

Driving into Göreme, things seem a bit different here!

After driving near to what the GPS thought was our destination, we parked the car and set out on foot to find the hotel. With a bit of luck, we found the place we were looking for, and amazingly we were able to check-in at about 8am! We were even offered to go and have a complimentary breakfast in the hotel restaurant. We were actually welcomed by a Turkish man who had spent several years living and working in Melbourne, and he was very helpful in recommending what we should see in Cappadocia in the limited time that we had available.

Heading initially to our hotel room, we were both very pleased with what we had been given. The room itself was build into the rock, with natural stone floor, walls and ceiling in places, with the remainder made of natural and rustic materials. Having camped the previous night, we both showered and changed before heading to the hotel restaurant where we recharged over a great buffet breakfast, planing the days activities based upon the advice we had received from the owner of the hotel.

Our suite... sweet!

Our bathroom, carved into the rock.

Paşabağ 'Fairy Chimneys' (peribaclari)

The first destination that we visited whilst in Göreme was the Paşabağ or 'Monks Valley' fairy chimneys. Heading north out of Göreme, we passed by Çavuşin on the way to Zelve, before stopping opposite a vineyard where a number of tourist merchandise vendors were setup, and a path was laid out amongst the peribaclari.

The 'moonscape' before us had been formed as a result of huge quantities of ash being spewed from ancient volcanoes (Mount Erciyes, Mount Hasan and Mount Melendiz) settling to form a thick tuff over the surrounding landscape, before centuries of wind and water eroded the soft rock, carving out spectacular gorges and leaving behind the dramatic pinnacles of rock - the 'fairy chimneys'.

Apparently the Paşabağ valley contains some of the most striking fairy chimneys in Cappadocia, hence the recommendation that we visit here, including some with twin and triple rock caps. This style is unique even for Cappadocia and these fairy chimneys are called 'mushroom-shaped' fairy chimneys.

By 10am it was already hot outside, and the bare rock seemed only to reflect and concentrate the heat. Nevertheless, the beauty of this place had out quickly out of the car and doused in sun cream, before setting out on foot to peruse the strange rock formations. In the shade beneath and inside of the fairy chimneys, the temperature was quite pleasant, so for the most part we trekked from shade to shade stopping only for a few photographs in the sunshine.

After acclimatising a little, we then ventured atop some of the formations to afford some views of the valley filled with the peribaclari formations below. The colours of the landscape were many, with every hue of colour from white to orange, brown, yellow and grey imaginable seemingly present. The fairy chimneys were of random design, with small, large, straight and curvy structures present. There were apricot trees growing in amongst the rock formations, but aside from these there was little greenery. Under a brilliant blue sky, with beautiful white and grey cumulus cloud formations, the landscape was simply breathtaking.

Tripled capped fairy chimney, like giant mushrooms...

Me, inside one of the churches carved into the soft rock.

Weird shapes...

Gerle, posing in the window of the church carved inside.

Walking inside a 'nest' of ancient dwellings carved into the soft stone.

Mushrooms or whipped meringues?

Walk through the valley.

Phallic...

In the valley below

Like a mushroom?

The 'moonscape'

Sitting on a giant mushroom!

Kaymakli Cave City

After leaving the Paşabağ fairy chimneys, our original plan had been to then visit the Göreme Open Air Museum, but as the heat had intensified we thought it best to head toward Kaymakli and the Cave City where we would be in the shade during the hottest part of the day, before backtracking to the Open Air Museum closer to sunset.

Having been denied beer and wine whilst in the Konya region the day previous, we had noted a 'wine cellar' sign on the way into Göreme in the morning and figured we should check it out on our way past to Kaymakli. The facility was pretty simple, but we tasted a few of the locally produced wines (which were decent without being spectacular) and departed with a few bottles to stock the car with for our next series of campsites.

Arriving in Kaymakli, we were a little unsure of what to expect. Most of the research regarding Göreme that we had done prior to arrival centred upon the fairy chimneys and hot air balloons. Neither of us knew of the presence and prevalence of underground cave cities in this region, instead expecting to see such things in Vardzia (Georgia) in about two weeks time.

To say that this was an oversight would be an understatement, particularly in the hindsight of having visited Vardzia. The cave city at Kaymakli was amazing... literally thousands of people habited this underground labyrinth complete with kitchens, wine making and storage, ventilation, plumbing and security facilities.

The underground city at Kaymakli comprises of 8 levels, of which only 4 have been opened for public viewing. Areas of the first floor are apparently still accessible from the courtyards of people living above, and used for storage. Traditionally the first floor was used as a stable / barn, the second has a church and storage areas, the third floor contained the wine making and storage facility, as well as communal kitchens and the fourth floor contained more wine storage as well as living areas.

When we arrived at the entrance, busloads of Turkish and Russian tourists were milling around and we we accepted the offer of a personal guide willingly to try and escape the crowds. It proved a good decision, with our guide both friendly and knowledgeable about the underground city as a local resident for the past 50 years. Manoeuvring about the underground passageways with ease, despite no signage, he swiftly navigated us to some of the more interesting sites and explained them in astonishing detail.

We were able to witness what had once been private dwellings, communal kitchens (including smart smoke extraction and filtration systems), wine presses, grain mills and security doors designed to lock out intruders (and there were many prowling Anatolia at the time). The bottom levels were approximately 80m deep, through we were only able to peer down to these via a ventilation shaft as the lower levels were not yet open to visitors.

To allow us to feel what it must have been like, our guide took us to some 'off the beaten path' type places where we had to squeeze through some narrow passageways to emerge into claustrophobically small chambers. Apparently there is also a 10 km long tunnel only just large enough for one way human traffic to another nearby cave city... traversing this doesn't sound too appealing, excavating it seems insane!

Emerging about one hour later into the bright sunshine, it took a few minutes for our eyes to adjust again to the bright light after being below deck for so long. For anyone else who travels to here, I strongly recommend that a private guide or guided tour be used to explore the city; we would not have seen nor understood 10% of what we had, if we had ventured in independently. There are no signs, neither for direction nor information.

Our guide explaining some detail to Gerle, thanks photo bomber...

The troglodytes who inhabited here must have been small!

Entrance to a private 'home'. Note the circular 'door' that could be rolled shut to prevent unwanted access.

Reminiscent of days working at Bundoora colliery.... no wonder I swapped underground for open cut mining!

Cave Girl

Another private home and two tonne 'door'

Unlike me, our guide was of the perfect stature for this place.

Turning around to come back out of this passageway was NOT easy!

I never noticed how small our guide was until looking at this photo!

Göreme Open Air Museum

After departing from Kaymakli, we returned to Göreme after stopping briefly at a supermarket to stock up for the next few days camping. Whilst driving we passed through a brief shower of rain, which was great to settle the dust and bring out some richer colours amongst the rock formations.

Arriving late in the day at the Göreme Open Air Museum, we were glad to see that that hordes of people that had been present earlier had now departed, and by 5.30pm the afternoon sun had lost its strength and a light breeze had picked up. Setting off for the entry from where we parked the car, it was amusing to see camel rides being touted.

Despite having excellent English the boy annoying us to take up the 'unforgettable experience' didn't quite seem to understand that coming from Mongolia camels are not so much of a novelty... and we certainly weren't naive to the fact that camels are essentially grumpy and smelly beasts who don't care for tourists. The guy had persistence though, continuing to flog his trade on our return over an hour later despite our clear lack of interest.

Heading into the Open Air Museum, we were again not exactly sure what to expect. Here, there were not so many fairy chimneys, though what did exist were much larger than at Paşabağ and had significantly sized churches carved within.

Some of the openings were massive, with multiple arched ceilings covered with frescoes, which unfortunately at some time in the past had been seriously defaced. Christianity was certainly not favourable to some Anatolian powers at various times, with many frescoes almost completely destroyed and at least all with the eyes of the characters depicted scratched out.

Tiring a little after what had become a long day, and with the museum due to close within the hour, we quickly walked amongst and into the churches, but as the sun dipped below the horizon (artificially early as we were in a steep sided valley) we decided to call it a day and head back to the hotel.

Tired and needing an early night before tomorrows early start, we opted to eat at the hotel. The meal was simple but nice, though we both received meals different to our expectation after interpreting the menu prior to ordering. After a small dessert of local halva we retired to the room, organising everything we needed for the morning before getting to sleep early for out 4.15am wake-up call...