Welcome to the Moon

It seemed to make the most sense. A direct overnight bus for $30 to take me from my hotel in Istanbul to the local bus terminal in Goreme 5 minutes away from my new guest house. I didn't factor in a less than comfortable bus, screaming TV movies, keeping the lights on, a huge snow storm with stop and go traffic, having a paranoid reaction to my sleeping pill, catching a cold and trying to swallow with a throat on fire, along with rest stops every 3 hours. 15 hours later totally strung out I was standing alone with no other tourist and no local tour operators or hotel recruiters trying to capture my tourist dollars. It was too (*&#@!*& cold for anyone to be outside to get my business. The local guest house owner arrived after a call to drive me back to the coolest looking cave Inn that was literally carved into the limestone rock formations Cappadocia is famous for. It reminded me of other bizarre natural geographic wonders such as Cooper Peddie in Australia, the Badlands in the US and Meteora in Greece. The sub artic winds and shallow snow covering added to the mystical nature of the place but seriously pushed my tolerance for being unconfortable. With my cold full on I could not get warm. Even in my cave room with heating in the floor I had to keep a cap on and could mildly see my breath all the time. The windows were encased in ice and each room was connected by walking outside and around the rocks to make my way even down to the main reception area for meals and conversation (with the owner). There were no other guests since they had obviously read some tour book I hadn't saying go somewhere else warmer.





Ok, enough bitching. I was there so decided to make the most of it for the 2 days I was going to stay. I could only handle 2 cold nights as well and therefore made arrangement to leave that region the only way acceptable, by plane. I refused to get back on another bus to head back to the coast so literally decided to fly out to Izmir since it was the only other city I could go direct aside from heading back to Istanbul.





So with no sleep behind me I spent the afternoon walking the local town (deserted) and then up to the Open-air museum which allowed you to climb in, out and around the old homes and churches that ancient civilizations had carved into the rock formations. Some very impressive engineering feats I must say. Since a great deal of the other worth while sites were a close driving distance from where I stayed, I arranged to spend the following day on a tour with 3 other Asians to visit Pigeon valley, an underground city, Love Valley (guess which photo is of this) Mushroom Rock and a couple other sites. All and all worth the visit and definately a place that would kick ass for outdoor adventure with incredible mountain biking, baloon rides, jeep trips and just general hiking. Heard in the summer it is usually so hot many sleep out doors to cool down in the evening air. Speaking of which my evenings there involved a home cooked meal at the Inn and me hanging out in my warmer Turkish bathroom or wrapping myself under a ton of blankets waiting for the morning sun to thaw a bit of the crusted ice.








My long trip in was rewarded by a quick flight out to Izmir on the coast which was going be 3 days of hanging back in the third largest Turkish city, celebrating New Years Eve at a club and spending a great deal of time with a grad school friend who lived there. As it turned out the city has only one tourist site, is pretty large and confusing to navigate, had only large impersonal expensive hotels to stay and my friend was unsable to visit since her in-laws showed up instead. So I only stuck out this segment for a day before fleeing down the cost to Ephesus, a worthwhile Roman adventure (stay tuned)...