Travels

Day 9 The next phase of our trip was Cappadocia. (kappa DOE key a) I think most of the Western world has heard about this place with PBS specials & a lot of travel show coverage. Home of the fairy chimney houses. Frescoed churches in caves. Underground cities. And yes, it is all true. This is a must-see kind of area as I will try to illustrate. During the itinerary shuffle, I extended our stay in Göreme – our chosen destination in Cappadocia. I also popped for deluxe accommodations, with a suite at the Kelebek Cave Hotel. # 21 Eagle Nest Room. But first, we had to get there. This was a very early morning. Again. That was the biggest flaw in my itinerary. Too many early mornings. We were up at three. Out of the door at four. Driving into Izmir airport at five. AM. And I couldn’t find the rental car drop-off. There were two earlier signs in English & I dutifully followed them & then nothing. I drove all around. Nothing. I drove into the standard parking lot. Nothing. And the jerks that were manning the booth insisted that I pay 6TL for the minute that I spent in the lot doing a circuit. They told me to turn left at the T. And they laughed as I paid & drove off. To the left the signs were incomprehensible – something about security. I went for it anyway & then a quick vehicular about face which led me to the well-hidden lot. A few signs might be in order . . . But noooo, our stress was not over yet. There was a lot more where that came from. Pegasus had cancelled the flight. And they tried to call me five times. They said. But they didn’t have a number. They said. But how did you call five times without a number? I said. I was peaking by this time & the attendant directed us over to the ticket counter. I’m sorry sir, but the only thing we have leaves at 16:40. . . yes, we called you five times . . . but we didn’t have your number . . . but wait . . . (typing furiously) . . . maybe . . . (more typing) . . . yes . . . I can rebook you through Istanbul (SAW) & you can connect to Kayseri & be there by 10AM. I could have kissed her. The check-in girl put all kinds of handwritten baggage tags on our luggage & made us remove something from one of them to our carryon because it was overweight by 1kg. But . . . we were on our way! So I called the hotel & rebooked the shuttle pickup for 10AM – only 1 ½ hours later then our original flight. We hustled through security & got to the gate as it was just about to board. Whew. Our connection in Istanbul went smoothly but on arrival in Kayseri, all of the plane’s luggage came through . . . except for ours . . . and the baggage area cleared out. They staff looked at us. We helplessly muttered no bags & pantomimed the international I-don’t-know –but-I-think-I-am-about-to-blow-a-gasket sign. Just as the spectre of this new dread was rising, two attendants came around the corner . . . wheeling . . . YES . . . our bags! The shuttle was waiting – with 5 other rather impatient travellers – for the one hour drive to Göreme. Pronounced gerr EM ay but you have to wrap your tongue around the gerr & add a u sound.
	Kayseri with towering Mount Erciyes
Kayseri sits east of the ‘good’ parts of Cappadocia with snow-capped Mount Erciyes - an extinct volcano - dominating the landscape to the south. Speaking of the landscape, it consists of large green undulating hills with no trees. My suspicion that this green will turn brown as the summer sets in was confirmed by Mustafa – the balloon pilot/tour guide/Greek-Byzantine icon expert/ex-carpet salesman who comes in – nicely too – later in this ever-expanding travelogue. As far as you can see, it looks like a vast steppe & it was easy to envision the Tatar hoards charging over a hill like they did here long in the past. As did the Seljuqs invaders. The Romans conquerors. The ever-ambitious Mithridates. Alexander the Great. Xerses of cinema's 300 fame. Cyrus the Great who actually was great. A lot of boots have marched through here. We stopped in the largish town of Ürgüp to drop a traveler off in a seemingly newer subdivision of nice-looking flats with hotels mixed in. This was the start of the cave house zone but there was a whole lot of modern building going on in this area to service the burgeoning tourism industry. Fifteen minutes later, we swooped around a downward bend & passed the Göreme Open Air Museum on the left. Now, the strange rock formations were everywhere. Cool! Göreme sits in valley surrounded by landscape quite reminiscent of parts of the US southwest, with large stratified rock formations dominating the small town to the northeast & east with looming green giants fading in the distance all around. Three large volcanoes covered the area with lava & volcanic ash & the slow erosion of this has created this unique topography. Wind + water + many tens of centuries. The so-called fairy chimneys are everywhere mixed in with low-rise one to three story apartments etc climbing out of the center of the sloping town. The added dose of the seriously phallic rock towers results in a landscape that is truly bizarre. An aside: Speaking of phallic, I was beside a 30s American couple in the Ephesus Museum as their attention hit the small (but big - wink wink) phallic statue highlighted in a darkened display case. Like everybody, they smirked & then he raised his camera to take a picture. She hissed: Don’t do that! You know our daughter will see these pictures! What were you thinking? What’s the matter with you? Back to Göreme . . . a crossroads (actually just a bend in the through road but it looks like a crossroads) marks Göreme central with shops, restaurants & hotels spreading out in four or more directions. Google Earth has conveniently placed a cloud over much of it, so it is hard to get a fix on the size, but it is not big the cloud in now gone July 2013). One of the locals (Mustafa again) told us that it is next to impossible to find decent rental flats in town & with an upcoming baby, he is forced to move to nearby Nevşehir for something larger. But wow! Absolutely stunning & incredible views everywhere. The Kelebek is situated on high in the southwest part of Göreme up a narrow cobbled street. The hotel used to be the owner Ali’s family home & he started out with just three rental rooms, without enough cash in his pocket for business cards. And the other hoteliers told him that he was crazy because no one would ever walk up from the town center to stay there. Well, now Ali owns a couple of hotels & restaurants, a travel agency & he is partners with a balloon company etc etc. Another guest remarked that he appears to own half the town. Probably not yet, but give him time. We got a particularly warm welcome at the Kelebek. The staff was falling over each other to welcome us with tea or coffee offered immediately as they ushered us into the office for registration & orientation. Certainly a class act. There is one woman who appears to do very little other than walking around smiling & being nice. It didn’t suck – especially after our whirlwind day. Since it was just noon, we folded ourselves into some comfortable chairs in the sunshine on the outdoor patio & ordered some lunch. Our mouths were agape as we looked at the town spreading out in the valley below us. Yeah, four nights of this was definitely what we needed at this point in our Turkish adventure. I have nap double underlined in my travel notes. I guess we needed one. I keep quick point-form notes as we travel & I try to do updates to it 'the morning after', since I am always up first anyway. It’s a curse. The latest I got up this whole trip was 5:30. After a nice rest, we wandered down the hill (Note: the hill) to hunt for supplies. The town is pretty laid back. The vendors don’t bug you at all to come in, despite there being numerous carpet shops, travel agencies & various tourist paraphernalia stores. A lot of scooter & ATV rentals as well. We aimed towards a grocery - that is all the way down on the left near the bend that curls towards the Göreme Open Air Museum, which sits just 1km out of town. Rumor has it that this grocery has liquor. And yes, the friendly store owner was happy to see us & he had a nice inventory of drinkables. He even had Kleenex, which is a rare commodity in many countries. My wife considers it a staple & she is always railing about our hotel’s lack of said essential or the three sheets left in the box if the have supplied it. We had a coffee in a café on the road & we quickly decided that there is a surprising amount of noisy traffic making its way through the town – cars, trucks, buses big & small, tractors, parades of ATVs on tour, 4x4s with balloon trailers, horse-drawn carts & men on horseback traipsed through at different times to the day. With supplies in hand, it was back up – yes, it always up isn’t it? – to our hotel to relax pre-dinner. The hotel is on a street that spills into a a spike off the main drag of Göreme & it is tilted up (in elevation) towards the south where the Kelebek is located. The cobbled twisty incline for the last 300 meters (that starts to rival Mt. Kilimanjaro later in the week) ensures that coming 'home' will be painful. Oh well, the price of a view. And yowsa, the Kelebek has views! We booked one of their presidential suites – in fact the best room in the house – the Eagle Nest (oddly without the 's') RM 21. It is a large stone room with wonderful wood & stone floors, exposed wood beams, a fireplace sitting area at one end (they leave wood & cardboard every night), a large bathroom with shower enclosure (a double-header too), a claw foot tub & the pièce de résistance: a large balcony that perches above the pool with a stunning view of western Göreme - complete with a fine sampling of the area’s visual oddities. Just be aware that this aerie is very exposed to the grounds below, so you might want to perfect your Queen E II wave for the minions around the popular pool sitting areas. For dinner, we decided to walk next door to the Seten Restaurant, whose brochure ‘mysteriously’ graced the Kelebek’s welcome package. The hotel staffed billed it as a ‘fine dining’ establishment. It certainly had that look & feel, with be-suited waiters & nicely appointed dining rooms – and prices to match. While quite good overall, I would rate it as quite expensive for the area – more show than go – if you know what I mean. We killed a bottle of Turasan’s exclusive Seneler Öküzgözü 2008. Good night.

Views from the Kelebek
Day 10 In Göreme, the call to prayer is particularly haunting, bouncing around the canyons & waking up the dogs who howl along with it. This also seems to signal the start time for a beehive of activity in the town. 4x4s start racing round, shuttles crept all over town & you start to hear a humming sound from the east. It’s hot air balloon time! We had originally pre-booked a ride with Butterfly Balloons (Mustafa again) for this morning. Because of the harrowingly early previous day, my wife requested a change so we threw caution to the wind & changed it to the morning of Day 11 to give us a chance to sleep in – or barring that, at least not have to leap up & be social too early. My reference to caution is a warning to all potential balloon flyers. Go as early in your stay as possible, because bad weather can roll in – i.e. high winds – that could force the cancellation of flights for a day. More later. And speaking of weather, the days were sunny & warm – not hot though & the nights so far were coolish – certainly jacket weather & 'let’s turn on the propane heater' weather for nighttime patio dining. The launch of the balloons is fabulous to watch as the early morning haze surrenders to the sun & the balloons – as many as forty every day – rise gracefully into the shy. Quite a few hotel guests appeared on the lawn with their tussled hair & their cameras to take pictures of this incredible sight. So even if you don’t go for a ride – and you really should btw – get up & watch. I bet you that the hotel’s night man will make you instant coffee, if you ask nicely. Of all of our hotel stays this trip, the Kelebek had the best breakfast spread – although the ‘live’ eggs at the Arcadian deserve a special mention. The breakfast & common areas are shared with – at least – the Canyon View Hotel – another Ali property. While it was never overrun, it did beef up the ‘crowds’ at the 8:15AM breakfast rush hour.
Balloons over Göreme			Balloons over Göreme
With the sun promising a nice day, we decided that we needed some exercise. I guess we were just missing the physical benefits of the thousand stair climb we had in Istanbul or our mountain climbing adventures x 2 in Ҫirali, but I latched onto the idea that a valley hike would provide great photo opps as well as a nice workout for the pumper. We queried one of the hotel staff – the ‘money’ girl whose family owns a restaurant that also has a brochure in the package – hmmm – for trail ideas. In hindsight, she might not have been the best person to ask . . . When all was said & done, we kitted up for an assault on Pigeon Valley. The trailhead for Pigeon can be found in Uşhisar, a town up on the heights, southwest of Göreme. We headed to the Göreme center for a bus, picking up a stray dog along the way. After some initial confusion about the location – we asked three different people with three different & indifferent answers – we found the bus stop & we had actually already walked through it twice during our search. 2 TL is collected on board per person & twenty minutes later – that includes a ten minute wait for construction - the driver dropped us on the road beside Uşhisar. Following Pigeon & Peegon Valley signs, we headed to the town’s center where you turn right & walk until you reach the Onyx Factory tour bus stop at the end of the road passing the swanky La Maison du Reve on the left. The trail starts below the ticky-tacky shop opposite the Onyx factory, so this is the last opportunity to hit a washroom & buy water before you head down into the abyss. My wife got a slow start down the hill – oh, oh – but warmed up as a young couple descended at the same time. Near the beginning, a farmer called out to us as we were about to circumnavigate his small plot & directed us to the pathway through a cave on the side of the canyon. I thought he was upset with us at first, but he was actually just being helpful – and protecting his meager crop as well. The path splits & rejoins as it meanders pleasantly through this treed valley following a less than pristine-smelling creek, with fairy chimneys everywhere. The cave houses in Uşhisar’s spire that hovers above also make for some amazing photo opps. We slugged on & just after an inlet road & some waterworks, a deep crevasse split the valley in two. There were multiple path options & we inevitably made the wrong choice. Duplicating our Arcandya failure, we reached a point on a slippery trail where my wife sat down & said: no more. Simultaneously a man far ahead started yelling to us from across the yawing chasm. Not safe - he appeared to yell. Dangerous. He crossed his arms in a universal don’t go sign. Well, that was enough of this madness, I rationally decided. I had no desire to test the capabilities of the Turkish Search & Rescue team & my wife was freaked as it was. We doubled back & made a very tiring trek (or should I say exhausting climb) up the access road which took us through someone’s livestock – two goats & two horses – into a town area in Uşhisar's spire's shadow. Of course, we were assured later that there is a path that will let you walk all the way to Göreme but we certainly missed it. On the outskirts of Uşhisar, we stopped in a small forgotten café to have a plate of French fries & cold drinks for 15TL. Of course, we still had to get back to Göreme, several kilometers away. The god’s smiled as we reached the highway, just as a bus was approaching. Thankfully, the bus drivers respond to weary travelers desperately waving their arms at the side of the road.
Pigeon Valley

					Uşhisar
Trails around Göreme	Göreme				Cappadocia
Back in Göreme central, we felt mildly energized & we struck out for the Göreme Open Air Museum 1.2kms away. On foot. The cruelty of this decision was only evident in the last .5kms. Up, of course. Our legs were getting pretty leaden by this point. Intrepid travelers that we are, we paid our 15TL & went in. The Open Air Museum is a small high valley that was an early-Christian community - all living in caves with cave kitchens & churches etc. Well, the tour groups had not cleared out yet since it was only around 3PM. We viewed what we could shove our way into & also coughed up an extra 8TL to see the main event – the 11th century Karanlık Kilise. Many people don’t see this because of the extra fee, but it is pretty spectacular with vivid frescoes. The guard insisted on a no-camera rule & pitched his guide services for his days off. Yeah, yeah. The extra 8TL also gains you access to main event # 2 – the Tokalı Kilise – down the road & across from the ticky-tacky stores. Unfortunately this was packed with at least three different groups with guides shining flashlights – no cameras please – on the frescoes as they babbled in at least three different languages. We left & trudged – and I do mean trudged – back to the Kelebek & its seemingly Everest –like access road. Since we were both in need of new legs, we ate in the hotel’s restaurant this night & consumed the hotel’s last bottle of Likya Kizilbel Boḡazkere Cabernet 2008. I gave a sample to a group of Aussies who were lusting for it after I snagged the bottle. Early to bed, with a seriously early wakeup call programmed for our balloon ride the next morning.
Göreme Open Air Museum

Day 11 We woke up early & we were revved up like a couple of school kids for our balloon ride. As mentioned, we had chosen Butterfly though the hotel - which is connected to Heritage Travel - which is connected to Butterfly. Hey, it’s a small town but it is great to see & to support so many local businesses as opposed to the foreign invaders. We saw a McDonald’s sign in the middle of nowhere on the drive from Kayseri so the monsters are coming. . . Anyways . . . Butterfly aced the balloon ride experience. It was flawless. The pickup, light breakfast, drive, safety briefing, loading, flying, pilot, landing, corny certificates, champagne, delivery. We had a blast. Everyone in our balloon had a blast. Even the two serious older German guys were downright giddy. Mustafa (who would have guessed?) was our pilot. His banter quelled any pre-flight anguish & his comedic routine in-flight really added to the fun. We landed at one hour & twelve minutes in-flight & we travelled 7.2kms. A total & absolute Wow! Highly recommended! http://www.butterflyballoons.com/flights.php
Balloon Ride



For the rest of the day, we loitered. We loitered downtown Göreme – mailed postcards, had a forgettable pide (Turkish pizza) for lunch, shopped some ticky-tacky & carpet stores – aaaiiiieee – there I said it. Shopping for Turkish Carpet. Or how to eat up a holiday while watching smooth-talking Turkish salesmen bring out every single piece of carpet that they have in the store. I didn’t know that this was going to be an important component of this trip until it was. Anyway, back to the Kelebek, we booked a private tour for the next day & lounged in backpacker’s corner, being sociable as the temps started to slip & a cool breeze picked up. The clientele at the Kelebek was probably the friendliest crowd that we have ever glanced off of in our travels. We met couples from Brisbane, Palo Alto, New York, Manchester (well near it anyway) & Emy (travelling alone) from NYC. We swapped travel advice & adventures with all. One had had her purse – money + wallet + camera – stolen the week before in Bangkok. Another couple had taken the overnight bus from Istanbul to Kayseri & it didn’t suck. In fact, they were going back that way as well. Others were busy planning the next destination & how to get there. I know that I could never travel that way, but it was fun to give them tips on where we’d been. Good times. The Kelebek is a strange hotel with rooms that range from the shared-bath teeny caves to larger deluxe suites & the guests were just as varied. Despite the range of budgets this encompasses, the service is equal for all & it is excellent. Very refreshing. We old folks get so boring on our own sometimes. For dinner, we decided to venture out – as long as we didn’t have to walk anywhere – since our legs were still screaming. This was solved by the other restaurant that had a brochure in the hotel’s package – the one owned by the family of one of Kelebek’s employees. Her brother picks you up & drives you up to the far side of Göreme just under the look out on the hill. I am glad that we didn’t walk. The cooking is done by her mother & aunt. Nostalji Restaurant. You have to pre-order some of the dishes since they take hours to cook. Even though they have two rooms, it was like eating in someone’s cave house. The youngest son – just 19 – is the waiter – cutely awkward. We had pre-ordered beef cooked in a clay pot or testi as it is locally called. Service was a bit rushed with the wine being opened after the salads arrived which was right after we sat down. More people arrived & we paused for a cigarette & photo break. Only one minute later, he chased us outside with oven mitts & the testi for me to smack open with a tin-foiled hammer. We hustled in to eat this delicacy but found it a pretty average beef stew. Hmmm. Somewhat disappointing after the buildup. Entertainment was supplied by a loud & obnoxious women who arrived & proceeded to tell anybody within earshot about her, her daughter, her son, their driver, her husband in Ankara, how great this restaurant was . . . she is not Calgary’s finest products from what I saw. Another trio arrived & they diverted her attention enough so that we could guzzle our bottle of wine & leave. Food in a jug was around 25TL each with a 70TL bottle of wine. Wine was Turasan’s Öküzgözü Bogazkere 2008. Overall, I was very impressed with the quality of the wines from Anatolia & Cappadocia. Restaurant wine prices varied wildly but good bottles were 40TL to 70TL. The brother - who is building the new fancy digs for the restaurant next door - drove us back to our hotel. By this time, the wind had whipped up & our balcony was not a comfortable place. I rigged up a blanket & chair screen that let us sit out – drinkin’ & smokin’ – enjoying the night & the barking dogs. Another great day bit the dust.
Nostalji Restaurant	Wind barricade				Göreme at night
Day 12 I hate to admit it, but after three days, the weird rock formations were almost get boring. Or at the very least you get so used to them that they are ‘just another rock formation’. After a brief but violent early morning rain storm, the balloons were grounded & no one flew. As I mentioned earlier, fly as soon as you can in case the weather forces a no fly day or two. I went for a wander in the formations that I had been staring at for three days from our balcony. Very, very peaceful place.
A morning walk near the Kelebek


Today we slummed until 11AM when we scheduled to go on a private tour to the underground city of Kaymakli, that we had arranged with Heritage Travel – just a few steps from the Kelebek. 40€ each with a van + driver + English-speaking guide. My wife has a potential claustrophobic thing happening so we decided to go with a guide. We could have gone on our own via bus with one transfer but . . . And besides, we got a free Kayseri airport transfer if we booked balloon + tour with them so it was easy to justify. And you will never guess who the guide was. Yes, you got it . . . Mustafa. He is a very personable jack of all trades & we really enjoyed our time with him. The underground city at Kaymakli was pretty tame after all of the buildup, but we saw it.
Kaymakli Underground City			Kaymakli - Mustafa & author
Aaaiiiieee. There is that scream again. And that can only mean more Turkish carpet shopping. Yes, one of Mustafa’s past trades was driving around swaths of the US with his buddy Ali & a van full of Turkish carpets. Note: He did not pressure us in the least & only broached the subject when we asked. His buddy is not the Ali of Kelebek fame, but is Mustafa’s partner in Sultan Carpets - whose business card can be found conveniently in the Kelebek area info desk. And guess what? It is a no-haggle because the-price-is-the-price Turkish carpet store. And Kelebek guests get a 10% discount! You can see where this is going, right? Yeah. As it turns out, my wife really, really wanted to come home with some Turkish carpets – kilims, sumaks or whatever – to use as mats in our newly renovated bathroom. I know Turkish carpets are a bit extravagant to use as bath mats but after spending north of 10K already, what is a few hundred more? Well, how about $450 CDN more? Ali was smooth & as honest as a sales guy can ever be – I am one, so I know. He had the right size & he had the right color, at the right price. We didn’t want red, and that ruled out 95% of the carpets on offer. We bought. Note: In Turkey you will be besieged by carpet salesmen everywhere you go. You can have a lot of fun trading quips with the sidewalk hawkers, so enjoy the experience. Some carpet stores are non-negotiable with set prices but most are of the let’s-make-a-deal variety. Also be aware that nothing has a price until you like it & then they check with the owner or in a book & give you a number. We had price checked in Istanbul & Selçuk so we knew the ballparks. We didn’t get a bargain but we didn’t get hosed, either. Do some research before you leave home (sizes, qualities etc) & you can get some nice buys. Ali also recommended lunch at the Nazar Börek Café next door. It was the best lunch we had in all of Turkey. Their baked or fried pastries filled with meat were scrumptious. Only six tables, so get it to go if they are full. My wife had a baked Nazar sosyete bõreḡi & I had the fried lamb-filled sigara bõreḡi. 17.50TL for both. Yum.
The chosen ones		With Ali at Sultan		In place in our bathroom
Nazar Börek Café		Nazar Börek Café's menu		Around town
Around town		Around town		Around town
Relaxing in backpacker's corner
After some more r & r & chatter with other travelers – it was cool & breezy so we huddled in backpacker’s corner - we went to the Orient Restaurant for dinner. Well, this was the worst meal we had in all of Turkey. This empty restaurant is #7 on Trip Advisor & is listed in all of the guides, but it has obviously seen better culinary days. You have been warned. Our waiter did eventually thaw a bit but the food was mediocre. And I would be remiss if I didn’t include a comment about our biggest complaint about the Kelebek Cave Hotel. As my wife said, it was obviously designed by a man. Our shower area was floored with large pebbles that were not nice on the feet. What were they thinking? I know. That is not a very big complaint . . .