Do what the Turks do: Kappadokya

My apologies for not updating this sooner, I have been very busy.

This past weekend, the other exchange students and I took a road trip to Kappadokya region in the central part of Turkey. We all met up in Izmir at 11 PM, hoped on a bus, and started the 11 hour drive it would take to get there. Now trying to cram 11 exchange students onto a small tour bus, and expect them to sleep was an interesting idea. Somehow everyone managed to do it, but not until about 2. I unfortunately have had a chronic disability for being able to sleep in small crowded places, and tried a multitude of uncomfortable spots before finally falling asleep around 5:30. Once all of us woke up, we were in the Kappadokya region. Looking out the window you could see many small stone towers with little windows carved into them, as if they had become a type of natural apartment complex. After some more driving we were at our first destination of the tour. It was this small canyon, that used to be a Christian settlement. Walking down into the canyon, you saw more of these windows carved into the stone, but upon further examination, and from what the guide told us, they were actually houses. This gave a whole new meaning to the phrase "Hole in the wall." The reason that people had carved into the wall was because one, it offered shelter, and two, they were escaping persecution, and didn't want to draw attention to themselves. The canyon was a very charming place. As I had said early, Turkey is a pretty dry area, lots of brown and shrubs like Eastern Oregon. This canyon had a wonderful little stream running through the center of it which brought the whole area to life. The weather wasn't too hot, and there was a cool breeze rolling through the trees. If we weren't so pressed on time, I would have loved to have stayed longer. As we hiked along the river bank, our tour guide was spouting facts about the this canyon, and the surrounding area. Most of us weren't paying attention, we were too caught up in the beauty of the canyon. Unfortunately we had to leave the canyon and board the bus again. Thankfully our next stop wasn't too far away.

I'm sure everyone has had an ant farm at some point or another. The type where you can see how the ants dig their tunnels underground, and all the tunnels seem to connect in some way. That was basically what our next stop was. Kappadokya is famous for its underground cities that were hand carved by early Christians. To me it seemed like giant, mutant ants carved these tunnels instead of people, but they were impressive either way. The "city" that we went to see was said to have 8 levels to it, and could hold up to 20,000 people. This blew me away, I found it unbelievable that 20,000 people could live underground in a communal area and not kill each other, let alone fit down there. We were having trouble moving our small group of 12 through the cramped tunnels, so 20,000 seemed a little more than excessive. Throughout our excursion underground I was thinking, "Now would be a terrible time for an earthquake," which it would have been since we would have all been trapped underground indefinably and probably would've had to resort to cannibalism and drinking our own urine, but even though that would probably make Bear Grylls proud, I'm glad we made it out alive.

Finally we made it to our hotel in Gorome. Now you remember those towers I told you about with windows? Turns out that people still live in them, and some of them actually have electricity. Gorome has to be one of my favorite places I have ever been to. It is this small town that is so flawlessly, and beautifully incorporated into the rocks. Our hotel was right next to a few of those spires, and at night they were lit up so beautifully. Also our hotel was just awesome. It was actually like we were staying in a castle, all of the rooms were stone, and the curtains and sheets looked all medieval. I'm kinda sad that we weren't given time to go out and explore Gorome. We had to go to bed pretty early since we were getting up early to go sightseeing.

We all woke up bright and early the next day. The dining area was on the top of the hotel, with a gorgeous view of Gorome, and in the distance you could see some hot air balloons. It was a very picturesque view. After breakfast we all loaded up again and shoved off. Our first stop was a National park that had the largest collection of those cave homes in Kappadokya. Again this was a Christian settlement, and as such there were some beautiful churches that were carved into the rock. The ceilings were masterfully painted in beautiful colors depicting different Saints and Prophets, mostly Jesus though. On our way out we ran into some Americans, and some of them were from the NW. Their accents were like music to my ears. We have other Americans in our group, but nothing compares to a good'ol Cascadian voice. After our walk through the park we got on the bus again and drove to another site. This one was filled with rock chimneys, but because all of us were teenagers, they didn't really look like chimneys if you know what I mean. We spent some time wandering around there and ran into a Rotarian from Nebraska who was a HUGE Huskers fan, he compared his team to everyone one of the Americans teams, but he didn't ask if I was a Duck or Beaver, which hurt cause I knew I could have rubbed it in his face either way. Again we loaded up onto the bus and drove to another location. This one was by far my favorite, it was called the Valley of Pigeons, for good reason. There were pigeons everywhere. There were also these gorgeous trees there, but none of them had leaves, and they were all dead. They were covered in evil-eyes, and the story goes, that if you put an evil-eye on the tree you get a wish. From the valley you got a beautiful view of the area, and this ancient castle that is carved into the a huge rock. That was our next stop. This castle wasn't really a castle in your stereotypical "castle" sense. It had been carved into a giant rock, and was very fun to explore. From the top you could see the whole area, which was gorgeous. There were no railings, which when one of your friends who you're taking a picture with decides to "push" you, you suddenly see your life flash in front of your eyes and blindly grab for anything you can. This was our final stop for the day, but on the way back we stopped at a pottery shop, where all of the pottery inside had been hand thrown, and painted, and was absolutely breathtaking. We actually got to see the potter make something, and then Max, the boy from Mexico, gave his best attempt to replicate it. Finally we made it back to the hotel and got ready for dinner.

Dinner, was actually dinner and a show. It was in this underground diner, (go figure) that probably could have seated 200. The acts were all traditional Turkish dances, in traditional dress, so it was very fun to watch. At what I think was intermission, they had everyone come onto the dance floor for a dance party. It was funny since the majority of the people there were seniors, and here are 11 teenagers acting like fools. Finally "Gangnam Style" came on, and that's where I took my leave. Once intermission ended, the good dances came on. One act was a bunch of guys doing some seriously fancy footwork, and by far the funniest was this act where 2 guys had faces painted on their stomachs, and had sheets covering their faces, they were wearing a "skirt" that had fake hands and a small jacket on them. They looked very comical, and they played it off very well. Finally the belly dancer came in, and she was by far the best belly dancer I have ever seen. I got into a debate with my Brazilian friend who thought that stripping was sexier than belly dancing. This argument went on for a while, and finally ended with him finally admitting that belly dancing was sexier. The show decided to end on it's best note, which I thought was wonderful. This day was definitely among some of my favorite days. Again we all went to bed early since some of us had to get up at 5:30 for the hot air balloon ride.

Now for those of you who have never been up in a hot air balloon, it is very interesting. It's basically like you're levitating, but you have a flame at the back of your neck. Your not going fast enough to feel like you're flying, and you can't really move cause the basket is very small, but you get a wonderful view of the surroundings. To get to this hot air balloon ride, the people going had to wake up at 5:30, when the sun hasn't even gotten up yet. All the other girls were super excited to be going, I was still trying to get over getting up so early. It took a while to get to the balloon, and when we got there they had to inflate the balloon. That was actually pretty interesting. They started with fans, and once the balloon was open enough so they wouldn't light it on fire when they turned the torch on, they ignited on of the biggest flames I've seen. That filled it up very quickly. Then we all hopped in and took off. The ride lasted about an hour, and provided some breathtaking views of the area. There were hundreds of balloons in the air with us, and since the sun was rising, it cast some lovely siloheuttes. Once the balloon ride was over, we were bused back to the hotel, where we quickly packed, and got on another bus.

I don't feel like I need to bore you with the activities exchange students do to entertain themselves on a 10 hour drive back. Especially since you have already invested a lot of time reading this entry. What was interesting was that we drove through a lightning storm where the bolts stretched all the way across the sky and lit up the whole bus. That was about the most exciting thing that happened. I hope this entry left you wanting to go on adventures of your own, because I sure want to have more of my own.

Goroscuruz
-Torvald