Sunday, May 17, 2009

Cappadocia Tour March 2009

Photos to follow....


Spring has sprung and we are busy getting Matador ready for this years
adventures. Though to tell the truth we haven't really stopped all
winter with constant boat jobs to do, including fitting a new gearbox
casing, prop shaft to engine coupling and realigning the engine and
propshaft. Various rebuilds of bits of the boat took place, and Stu
refurbished the forward cabin which is now gleaming with shiny varnish
until we covered it all up with the sails, bikes and tools to go
sailing. The boat looked like a chicken shed all winter with everything
on deck under the 'sun' canopy, which mostly kept the rain off.

It has been a short chilly and wet winter, though not cold like England,
lasting longer into spring than normal according to those that have
wintered here before. But now most days are sunny and almost too hot to
sit out in already, interspersed with the odd thunderstorm to remind us
it's not time to leave yet.


We had a couple of weeks holiday, within our holiday, to go to
Cappodocia in the moutains. We hired a car and drove 2000km in 2 weeks.
Here's a quick run though of our inland travels.


Lakeland – Egidir

When we picked up the hire car, we were supplied with homemade bread and
cake and fruit for our travels from the hire company – typical of
Turkish people to worry that we might go hungry!

As we drove north out of Finike towards Elmali, it was like going back
in time. The landscape became more subsidence agriculture and oblivious
to tourists. We passed through Elmali on market day, with its old
Ottoman architecture still in evidence. The streets were a flutter with
flags from all the parties vying for power in the forthcoming local
elections that were due in every town on 22^nd March. The market is
worth a visit on another occasion for its rugs and woven goods at more
normal Turkish prices. We continued on to Egidir on a lake and found a
room above the Big Fish restaurant (60TL). We ate fresh fish from the
lake and retired to a walm, simple and functional room.


Off next day for a very dull drive across the plains towards, around and
from the enormous city of Konya. It's famous for its Whirlish
Derivishes, but we've read that there are better places to see them in
action. The industrial outskirts of the city stretched for many miles in
every direction, and the road continued straight into infinity ahead of
us. We had to be careful not to speed, as in Turkey there are speed
radars and huge automatic fines. After many hours we arrived in the
Cappodocia area and found a room in an outlying village called
Guzelyurt. It is very traditional and there are people living and
farming the cave valley there. It gave us a real insight into the way of
life that used to prevail in the whole area before tourism took over as
the main source of income in the more central parts of Goreme and Ugurp.

It was pretty chilly, with snow still lying by the side of the road. We
stayed in ...pension which was the only place open in town (60TL). We
ate at the family table as recommended in the Rough Guide, but we found
it a tad overpriced and not so welcoming. Normally Turkish people ask a
lot of questions and are very inquisitive about your life, but it seemed
like this family had met too many tourists already, and were going
through the motions. In other words they had Rough Guiditis, a common
enough complaint among businesses that get a mention therein.

In the small, but unchanged underground city of Guzelyurt we found
fascinating passageways, and vertical drop holes with foot and hand
holds still in place. With torches and a bit of adrenaline we explored
some of these places where the inhabitants of the town would have hidden
away during Arab raids in the early years of Christianity.

The following day we drive through the heart of Cappodocia taking
millions of photos of the strange landscape shaped by volcanic rock
being weathered to differing degrees by wind and rain.

We visited the underground city of Derinkuyu. It was only impressive for
its extent and the size of the admission fee (15TL). It is well lit, the
passageways well reconstructed for the onslaught of thousands of
tourists in the summer, which means it is harder to imagine how life
might have been spent down here. The excavated part is 1500 square
meters and it thought to only be a quarter of the city. It would have
accomodated up to 30000 people for months at a time. It is thought that
they were built to withstand attacks in 1200BC ,but were enlarged and
embellished by various other civilisations through the years until more
certainly the Byzantine christian communties occupied them during Arab
raids. They contain schools, living quarters, smoke blackened kitchens,
stables, wine presses, meeting halls and churches, with deep wells and
70-80m vertical ventilation shafts. Huge circular stones like mill
stones, could be rolled across the narrow passageways to seal the
citizens inside and make the city virtually impregnable. They could fire
arrows through the central hole in the door to repel invaders. All very
Harrison Ford-esque.

We later heard that the other smaller underground cities are less given
over to tourism, and more evocative of the lifestyle of the former
inhabitants.


We read a small mention in the Rough Guide about a fresh water hot
spring haman on the outskirts of Cappodocia. We just found a sign at
dusk on the old Kayseri road east out of Avanos, for Yali Camping. We
followed this single track road up into a valley, We constantly stated
commented 'It can't possibly be up here/ open at this time of year etc'
but eventually we found a 'Termal Otel' and conversed in patchy French
with the owner Bulut, who also owns the campsite and haman. It is all a
bit run down, but we got a cheap room in the hotel, a soak in the
spa/haman in a private bath ( remember ladies and gents are not seen
together in states of undress in Turkey) and a meal and lots of beer and
dancing for not a lot of money. It's a very sociable little spot in
lovely surroundings off the tourist track, though they could do with
doing the laundry more often – I'll spare you the details.

The website is www.bayramhacı.com if you want to take a look (cut and
paste as there's a Turkish I without a dot which is hard to find on our
keyboard) It looks nothing like that in reality, in the end of winter,
decaying concrete, unpainted mode.

Next day we sought out our hotel in Ugurp for our 4 days of luxury
accomodation with Stu's dad and his wife visiting. We stayed at Hotel
Akuzan, which was a bargain booked on the internet. It was lovely hotel,
recently modernised and well run by Ahmed who spoke perfect English and
was a really good source of information about the area and all things
Turkish. We knew a lot of people who chose to stay in cave hotels for
the novelty of it, but they all found out that caves in winter are
mostly chilly and damp even if they have been turned into hotels. One
evening Ahmed cooked us a traditional meal baked in a large earthenware
pot for 3 hours in the village bread oven. It was the most delicious
meal we have had in Turkey, with loads and loads of vegetable meze to
accompany the casserole.


For 3 days we drove all over the central Cappodocia area, exporing cave
churches and hidden valley or hill-top cave settlements. It is a very
extensive area, altogether 200km wide, and each part has slightly
different volcanic rock erosions creating weird and wonderful landscapes.

We visited the Goreme open air museum, which at 15TL entrance was really
overpriced and full of American tourists. Yuk. Unless you are
particularly interested in the Dark Church with it's pristine early
Byzantine frescoes, then I'd suggest you give it a miss. Beware there's
an extra 8TL entrance fee for the Dark Church.

Part of the fun of Cappodocia is searching out frescoes in the numerous
churches spread thoughout the region, estimated to be more than 1000,
many of them free but often requiring a steep climb up the hillside. The
churches are in caves, but have had columns and domes carved into them
to resemble the interior of 'normal' churches of the era, and then have
been painted with wonderful examples of religious art. Unfortunately
various later raiders showed their hate of Christianity by scratching
out the eyes of the figures or in some cases destruction of the entire
image.

After stay in the mountains, we returned to Finike the long way round,
on the coast road. Despite linking the two major cities of Mersin and
Antalya the road deteriorates in places to a one lane mud and rock
track. This doesn't stop it being a major delivery route for road cargo.
It was hard going on our rental car at times, and took much longer than
expected. We stopped for a night at a little beach cove where we found a
simple pension, and the restaurant owner managed to find fresh food out
of nowhere, even though we were the only tourists in sight ( and
probably the first of the year to stay in the penison).

Further along the coast we stopped at Side, which was Anthony and
Cleopatra's trysting spot. There are substantial remains of the roman
town, and the town is quite sweet, which lovely beaches on both sides.
It is jam packed with tourist restaurants and souvenir shops with the
ubiquitous touts,and it took some time to find the locals restaurant,
just in time to shelter from an enormous thunder storm.

Back to real life after the holiday, we found there were spaces this
year on the East Med Yacht Rally to the Middle East Mediterranean
countries. So we brought forward next years plans, and signed up. All of
a sudden there are a million and one things to do to get the boat ready
for long distances, lots of overnight trips and land travel. Not least
the boat has to come out of the water to have its barnacles removed,
bottom painted and checked, so we are busy busy busy.......

No comments: