Zemi Valley

One final day of hiking. Are you sick of pictures of fairy chimneys yet?

The Zemi Valley trail was deserted. We did a little bushwhacking to get there as the trail head was along the Silk road, but it ended up being a really amazing hike. A steep carved-out staircase descends into the valley and you follow a stream bed back to Goreme through some spectacular, other-worldly landscape.

We bumped into one other family on the trail, and like every Turkish family we met while hiking, they offered us food. Though there were language barriers, the locals were insistent on sharing their lunch every where we hiked here.

Zemi Valley was quite lush and filled with songbirds.

The river had carved out the trail, leaving lots of fun squeezes and natural tunnels and bridges to pick your way through.

Seriously unique landscape in an area of unique landscape. There was one slightly hairy part of the trail where you had to belay down a large rock on ropes, but other than getting your feet wet a bit as the trail followed and crossed a stream quite a bit, it was easy hiking.

Alas, the rumble of thunder that was the constant companion of all hikes in the area was getting louder. It was forecasted that we would be soaking wet and running for cover the entire time in Cappadocia, and I felt lucky that this was the only storm that we encountered that fully unleashed its wrath on us.

Finally, the rain gear got some use though. You feel more sucker than smart if you have been carrying it the entire trip for nothing.

Back in Göreme, after a quick clean-up effort and fresh clothes, we had dinner at a fantastic place called Topdeck. It's a cozy little kitchen set in a cave, and the mezze. Oh, the mezze. Do you know what this is? It's almost always vegetarian, and it's a series of small plates to start your meal, or in some cases, it's what's for dinner if you have a lot of them. I will never have mezze again without having to compare it to the mezze here. It's a bit disheartening to have to go on with life knowing that you'll never have it as to-die-for, eyerolling good as the one place in Göreme in the middle of nowhere in Turkey that you had the one time. (Actually, twice. It was so good, I went back for it again.) TO DIE FOR, I tell you.

Which was quite excellent, since I had mixed feelings about life at that point since we would be boarding an overnight bus for a 9 hour bus ride right after dinner.

While you could feasibly take a flight from Nevsehir or Kayseri, the flights to Antalya were so infrequent, it was almost impossible to get one. Night bus was kind of our only option, and it was packed with mostly locals. There wasn't an actual bus station in Göreme, but a series of private companies set up along the main drag, each one sending people off into all corners of Turkey under cover of darkness.

Part of traveling is being a little uncomfortable from time to time. Remind yourself next time you find yourself on an overnight bus in Turkey.

Gözleme in Göreme

A view from a cave...

Cappadocia is synonymous with ballooning. There are dozens of outfitters that launch hundreds of ballons each morning. Even if you don't spend the money to go, it's worth getting up early to see the rainbow of floating airships pass overhead.

While the afternoon light can be harsh and glaring and really hard to get a clean image in, I found pleasure in getting some contrasty black and white shots in.

So called "Pigeon" valley. The names of the valleys changed depending on the whims of the mapmakers it seemed. The local farmers make safe places for pigeons and doves to make their homes, and then harvest the by-products to fertilize crops.

It was a dreamy, other-worldly landscape, reminiscent of some of the cave dwellings I've seen in Arizona.

It was also densely packed with groups of tourist and tour buses. Which, I mean, isn't terrible, but it was stiflingly crowded in places. Places that are dense are crowded for a reason, and it's usually because it's amazing and beautiful and you shouldn't deprive yourself of the opportunity to spend a few moments contemplating the smallness of your life when you see such things.

Local merchants were sure to take notice, and there wasn't a single scenic overlook where you couldn't go without tea and parting with some lire.

The plan was made though: we would spend a day seeing the more visited but worthwhile sites, and then hit the far reaches of the trail system for some peace.

A visit to a vast underground city- Derinyuku Yeralti Sehri. Parts were more than 8 stories under ground, with places for livestock and dwellings and churches, and tunnels connecting it to other underground cities. The dark, narrow, cramped tunnels offered a chance to take crap photos, but it was amazing to see.

Nearby, Ihlara valley was packed- it's a deep canyon with houses and churches carved into the cliffside- but it thinned out a bit once you veered off to hike some of the steeper trails.

The trip down into the gorge was via a narrow stairway, filled with people who perhaps had not navigated stairs in quite a while.

The whole area is notable for the lovely cave churches- hollowed out and frescoed, in various states of decay. Most were built more than a thousand years ago.

Despite distance rumblings of thunder, the day was marvelous.

A local specialty that was embraced:

Gözleme. It's a thin rolled-out piece of bread, stuffed with cheese and tomatoes or whatever, folded and blistered on a hot oven over an open fire. They were always homemade, always made by a woman literally slaving away over the coals and completely homemade and delicious.

The way the kitchen was set up, the women just sat there next to the flames, ofttimes with children at their feet, doing all the prep work and cooking from the same spot. With a deft flick of the wrist, she made an amazingly perfectly blistered smokey crepe that was to die for, and usually for about $1 USD.

Very fit, lithe people lived in these hills. Passing much huffing and puffing and puffing on cigarettes and trying to pass people obliviously blocking the narrow trail while on their phones...well, it was a lovely place despite.

An Epic Adventure...

I'm coming down from an epic travel adventure, so please excuse my slightly scattered brain as I try to process all that I've seen and done the past few weeks.

Let's talk Turkey, shall we?

In light of recent events in Istanbul and pretty much all over the place, a slight damper has been put upon the wonderful time I've had there. Police brutality and excessive force is a real issue there, and it has no place in peaceful protest.

I've been meaning to get there for quite some time now. It's a big country, and I wanted to give it more than a precursory glance and really do some justice to the sights and people. And food. Oh, the food. I don't have enough meals in my lifetime to being to even eat my way through that place. It ranks up there as the most delicious adventure ever at the very least. Food is something everyone I met everywhere took pride in, and any country with that philosophy is totally worth a visit.

It took a few months of planning as there were several parties involved and we were eventually all going to meet up in Istanbul, so we headed first for the interior with plans to make our way to the Lycian coast. Central Turkey is fairly empty and rural, so we flew in on Turkish Airlines to save the 10 hour bus ride that would have been in store, as I would have plenty of time to experience the bus later on.

The stop most people head to (aside from Istanbul) is the central arid Cappadocia region.

For good reason. It's an unearthly, stunning place.

Eons ago, volcanic eruptions deposited ash all over the region, which solidified. Wind and water went to work, and eventually the only bits that were left made odd pinnacles and giant rock mushroom shapes in the many valleys. People went to work and hollowed them out, making houses and churches and entire underground cities to safely hide from the warring Greeks and Hittites and Persians that were fighting in the area; all this dating back thousands of years.

Today, people still live in the caves, but mostly hotels have taken them over, renovated and made quite comfy as unique accommodations.

Despite tiny windows and not a whole lot of natural light, most of the caves are quite cozy.

Everywhere you went though, you could see the spots where nature had taken over, and the soft sandy stone gave way to expose the interiors.

Despite days of forecasted rain, the reason for the visit was to make good on an area perfect for exploring on foot. Rain gear was packed as we set out to hike the many valleys and trails of the area.