Going Green In Göreme

The Wife and I hate doing group tours.  We always feel like we are being herded around like sheep.  At some tourist attractions, we feel rushed trying to see everything and take the photographs.  At other places, we end up wasting our time stopping to see things that we could care less about.  A lot of people complain about the obligatory shops that the tours take you to.  The Wife has no problem with them—she just wishes she had more time there and didn't have to pay the hidden commission for the tour guides.  Overall, we hate the lack of freedom and flexibility that comes with doing a big group tour.  Plus, we hate being stuck with annoying strangers.  When we are on vacation, we would rather do small private tours or just try things on our own.  Despite all the disadvantages that go along with these big tours, we realized that it made sense to sign up for some while we were in Cappadocia.

One of the iconic activities to do in Turkey is a hot air balloon ride.  There are several agencies that offer rides from 1 to 2 hours.  We decided to go with a slightly more expensive outfit called Royal Balloon.  They got great reviews on the internet, and they give nice swag at the end of their flights.  We figure that we could spend a little more if we were going to risk the lives of The Kids.  Besides, if it is good enough for Martha Stewart, then it’s good enough for us.  We booked with them on the internet and paid with our Amex card to get a discount.  That’s a good thing.

The bus from Royal Balloons picked us up at our hotel at 4:30 in the morning.  With the early hour and the jet-lag, we were running on fumes.  

The bus brought us to their headquarters where we were fed a decent buffet breakfast.

A chalkboard directed us to the van that
we should board after we finished eating.

Despite their higher costs, Royal still had enough customers to fill six hot air balloons with 18-20 passengers each.  Somehow, our balloon ended up looking like Chinatown.  Aside from 2 Brits, everybody else was of East Asian descent.  There were mainland Chinese, Malaysians, and Asian-Americans like us.  We did feel a little left out because everybody else seemed to have selfie sticks.  We are so 2013.

Our pilot, Suat, was actually one of the more experienced, chief fliers for the company.  Over his career, he has traveled all over the world flying balloons including in our home state of Tennessee.  He has done television shows in England and most recently in China taking celebrities up in hot air balloons.  He was the one who piloted Martha Stewart's ride when she came to Turkey in 2010. Unfortunately he couldn't provide us with any Orange is the New Black type of stories about her time in prison.

When we arrived at the launch site, our balloon was in the final stages of being inflated. 

The Kids were lifted into the basket.  The adults climbed in using the built-in foot holes.

Although The Girl is only four feet tall, she could still see over the edge of the basket.

Suat fired up the flames, and we lifted off.

Our timing was perfect, as we were airborne as the sun rose into the sky.

It seemed like there were a hundred balloons in the air, all launching around sunrise.

The ride was pretty cool.  We couldn't have picked a better day.  It was relaxing watching the world below us as the gentle breeze carried us around unique landscape of Cappadocia.  The balloon pilots can control their height, but they have to go where the wind takes them.  Nevertheless, a skilled and experienced pilot can understand the wind directions and control the general area that they are flying to.  

Suat took us high to about 1,000 meters above the landscape.

Then, he dipped down in to the canyons mere meters above the ground.

This allowed him to show us the cave dwellings and pigeon coops that were used generations ago.

The aerial view from the balloon gave us a grand perspective of the Cappadocian landscape.

The Kids seemed to enjoy the experience, but an hour-long flight was definitely more than enough for them.

The Girl, especially, got antsy
standing around for 60 minutes.

She decided to sit down and use the foot holes as a window.

At the end of the flight, the hot air balloon pilots...

...expertly landed their baskets on a
trailer towed by a pickup truck.

The ground crew assisted the women and children in disembarking.

We were treated to a glass of champagne
once we were soundly on the ground.

Chocolate-covered strawberries, orange juice, and cookies were also passed around.

Our pilot, Suat, relaxes after the flight.

The Kids had fun helping deflate the hot air balloon.

The entire balloon (sans the basket) was able to fit into a durable bag.

While most balloon companies give out certificates commemorating the experience, Royal Balloons hung a medal around our necks.  It was the same quality as those that you get for running a marathon and you don’t even have to break a sweat!  Since we had made our reservations on the internet, we were also given a free baseball cap. 

By the time we were brought back to our hotel, it was only a little past 8 AM.  We felt like a US Army soldier from the 1980’s.  We had done more before 9 AM than most people had done all day.  Actually, we really didn't do anything but stand around.

With the whole day ahead of us, we also joined the masses for a green tour.  To make it easy on tourists, the local agencies have combined the most popular attractions into two main tours—the red and the green.  There are also some other color-coded tours to much lesser known locations.  The red tour encompasses much of the north/eastern areas around Göreme.  The green tour includes many of the locations southwest of this town.  Because these sites are spread out more than an hour away from Göreme, it made more sense for someone else to do a day’s worth of exhausting driving while we went along for the sightseeing.

The folks at the Eren Bey Hotel arranged for the four of us to join a green tour through Flintstones Travel.  Our tour guide, The Cat Herder, would be in charge of leading about 25 people.  Our group was like a Benetton ad.  There were Chinese, Indians, Brazilians, and a couple of Germans.  Some of them spoke very little English, which made it odd that they went with an English-speaking guide.  The Cat Herder would soon find that we were a handful to deal with.

We drove for about an hour south to the Selime Cathedral.  

In the 8th and 9th centuries, the Selime Cathedral was the largest Christian church in Cappadocia. 

The Cat Herder led us through the
narrow pathways to the first three floors.

The higher floors are inaccessible to the public.

There are several rooms that were used as a chapel and a missionary school.

The Girl rests on what was once possibly an altar.

Most of the frescoes have been damaged by people and nature.

With the Islamic conquest of Anatolia, The Selime Cathedral was eventually turned into a caravansary (Silk Road rest stops) in the 11^th century.  The Cat Herder showed us the stables on the first floor where the camels were housed.

These troughs were filled with water or food to feed pack animals.   

On the next floor, the kitchens had large holes carved in the ground that were used for tandoori ovens.  The walls and ceilings still bore the soot marks from countless fires.

A hole in the top allowed for light to come in and smoke to exit.

These large holes carved in the ground were used as tandoori ovens.

Additional rooms were carved into
the surrounding rocks for storage...

...or for coops to house pigeons.

It must have took years to carve some of the formations...

...or set of stairs from the solid rock.

Eventually, the site was abandoned around the 16^th century as The Silk Road declined.

After our brief guided tour, we had about half an hour to explore the place and take photographs.  It seemed to be ample time for us even factoring in the long descent that was slowed by the traffic of people going up and down the single path.  Nevertheless, the two Indian couples were 15 minutes late getting back to the bus.  We could sense some disapproval from The Cat Herder.

The Boy enjoys the views of the valley below.

Near the Selime Cathedral is a tomb built for a Seljuk sultan.

Our next stop was a few minutes’ drive away at the Ihlara Valley.  The total length of the area is about 14 kilometers.  There are four entrances to the valley.  Our tour bus dropped us off in the middle entrance near the village of Belisirma.  

A map of the area showed that we were only seeing a small fraction of the Ihlara Valley.

Centuries ago, the Melendez River...

...carved out a valley through
the nearby mountains.

With the sounds of rushing water and chirping birds, it was a serene place suitable for Christian monks to mediate.

Along the river banks, worshipers
in the 8th and 9th centuries...

...carved around one hundred churches into the walls of the mountains.

Frescoes were later painted inside around the 10-13^th  centuries after the Iconclastic Period.  Several centuries later, the water level has fallen so that now all that is left of that river is a shallow stream about 100 meters below.  Those small churches are now high above on the cliffs.

We hiked for less than a kilometer before we reached a long flight of stairs that led up to the cliffside.  While the climb wasn't too bad, I have to admit that I wasn't in the best of shape.  Middle-age had crept up on me.  The Cat Herder explained the cave at the top—(Kirk Damalti Kilisesi) The Church of St. George.  Inside this small enclave were beautifully-colored frescoes illustrating the life of Jesus Christ.  These paintings were especially important during these early centuries of Christendom, because much of the population was not literate enough to read works such as the Bible.  These illustrations helped missionaries teach the message of the Christian God.  

The face of this depiction of Christ has been scratched out.

An Ottoman sultan adorns the wall after he had the church restored.  

Once we were done seeing The Church of St. George, we followed The Cat Herder back down the long flight of stairs to the valley below.  We waited for everybody to make it back down.  We waited, and waited, and waited.  Already running behind schedule, The Cat Herder climbed halfway back up the stairs before exasperatingly giving up on the few remaining people who were nowhere in sight.  He finally just led us back to the entrance where we had started.  I swear I could see his eyes twitch a bit in frustration.

Part of the tour included a lunch at the nearby Belisirma Restaurant. 

The eatery's sole purpose is to cater to large tourist groups visiting the Ihlara Valley.

The first thing that The Cat Herder stressed to us was to order our food before we went to the bathrooms.  Perfectly on cue, about a quarter of our group promptly left for the bathrooms, leaving the waiters to stand around and wait for them to come back to get their orders.  The meal included bread, soup, a tasteless salad without dressing, and a choice of an entrée.  We went with the grilled trout, desiccated chicken kebab, beef meatball kebab, and a mushroom vegetarian dish.  Drinks were extra.

Bland soup

Salad without dressing

Desiccated chicken kebab 

Beef meatball kebab

Grilled trout

Spicy vegetarian mushroom casserole

Once we had ample time to eat and use the facilities, The Cat Herder instructed us to meet on the bus in ten minutes.  Twenty minutes later, we were all on the bus sans one of the Indian couples.  The Cat Herder had to go back to the restaurant to drag them back to our vehicle.  I believe our guide was starting to develop a bit of a tremor.

Our next destination was the underground city of Derinkuyu.  The network of tunnels and caves were built far below the surface and supposedly could house as many as 10-20,000 people (The Cat Herder was skeptical about these high numbers).  When the population was threatened, they would hide in the underground city for weeks at a time.  It was first believed to have been inhabited by the Phyrigian people several centuries B.C.   The early Christians built churches within the caves while avoiding Roman persecution.  When Cappadocia became the battleground between Byzantine and Islamic armies, the local populace sought refuge there.  Again they hid during the late 1300’s when Tamerlane and his Turco-Mongolians invaded.  Finally, the Greek population of Cappadocia used these tunnels during the occasional waves of oppression during the Ottoman Dynasty.  

Derinkuyu had deep wells that prevented the water table from being poisoned.

Thick boulders were used to block
the tunnel entrances from invaders.

The Cat Herder led us down several flights of
stairs so that we were many stories below ground.

The low ceilings and tunnels could trigger an anxiety
attack in people who suffer from claustrophobia.

Graves were even created for those who
had the misfortune to die in the city.

Despite the hot summer air outside, the tunnels were downright cold the further down we climbed.

The tunnels are artificially lit, but halfway through our tour, the power went out for ten minutes leading to complete darkness.  Fortunately, almost every adult had a cellphone with a flashlight app so nobody got lost or hurt.

Even with the artificial lighting, the tunnels remained eerily dark.

We were not disappointed when it was
our time to climb back to the surface.

Overall, the underground city of Derinkuyu would have been pretty cool, but it was just way too crowded.  Even though the park officials set a maximum limit on how many people can be inside at one time, the many tour groups kept running into each other and making so much noise that nobody could hear their guides.  The Cat Herder was especially frustrated by a group of schoolchildren following right behind us who made such a racket whenever he tried to speak.  When we finally made it to the exit of the underground city, we were short three of our group.  I really thought that The Cat Herder was going to burst an aneurysm in his head.  Thankfully, those last few people emerged a few minutes later before we had to call in the stroke team.   

Our last stop of the day was an onyx factory across from Pigeon Valley.  Once inside, a saleslady gave us a well-rehearsed spiel about the wonderful stones and jewelry that could be found (and purchased) in Cappadocia.  The Wife settled for some intricately-designed braided silver earrings for $30. 

The store had four showrooms that sold anything from Turkish turquoise to Gucci sunglasses.

We then crossed the street to see Pigeon Valley.  It was a deep gorge inhabited by…pigeons!  Previous inhabitants of the region used these birds to deliver messages.  Current inhabitants use them to attract tourists.  These wild squabs congregate around the nearby shops because they are constantly being fed by locals and tourists alike.  

Sadly, feeding the pigeons was The Girl's favorite part of the day.

This tree was covered with "evil eye" charms
which are supposed to ward off bad luck.

Although the pigeons were cheesy, the view of the valley was beautiful.

After another 15 minute drive, we made it back to Göreme.  As frustrating as this job could be for The Cat Herder, it is something he deals with day in and day out.  Hopefully, his pay is good because I didn't see a lot of people tipping him at the end of the tour.

Since it was not quite evening yet, we headed over to Boutique Carpets and Yastik’s.  The really friendly guys showed us several beautiful carpets over some more apple tea.  The prices were fixed and were higher than at Rose Carpets which we had seen the day before.  The pieces were of better quality, but only one really struck a chord with us.  The Wife wasn't too thrilled with the yastiks (cushion covers).

On the way back to our hotel, we made a small detour to another carpet shop called Tribal Collections.  It is owned by a Ruth Lockwood, a New Zealand woman who has been living in the region for more than twenty-five years.  She was out of the store at that late hour, but her Turkish assistant showed us several rugs.  Surprisingly, they never offered us the obligatory apple tea.  So much for maintaining the Turkish traditions.  Nevertheless, we were shown two beautiful wool Hereke rugs that we both really liked.  We took many pictures and asked many questions.  Once again, the prices were fixed there.

By the time we had left, it was already about 8 PM.  Some of the local eateries were full and we had not made any reservations.  We walked next door to the Hidden Cave Hotel for dinner.  For much of our meal, we were the only ones in the restaurant.  The food was much simpler and less expensive than our dinner at the Pumpkin Restaurant the night before.

Bread was served with pickled peppers, [   ], za'atar, and olive oil. 

Paçanga böreği (deep fried filo dough
stuffed with cheese and pastrami)

Saҫ tava et (meat and vegetables in a frying pan)

Etli testi kebabi (pottery kebab with beef)

By the time we reached our hotel, we were all very exhausted from such a long day dealing with crowds and being herded around like sheep.  The Wife remarked to Kemal, the Eren Bey Hotel owner, about our frustration with the Green Tour.  He responded, “Oh, you should have asked me about the small private tours that I give instead.  We combine the best of both the red and green tours.  Too bad, we only had three people today.”