Cappadocia Day Two

We left at 9am to see Maziköy, one of Cappadocia’s underground cities. It takes a lot more imagination to picture ancient civilizations there; everything is much more crude than Roman ruins. It’s probably about as easily understood as Troy; the most recognizable features are ventilation shafts and the altar in the room that served as a church. After leaving the underground city, we were invited to a wedding party in town. The children, most of whom were in school uniforms, kept asking us “photo? photo?” - we later found they were hoping to get money for letting us take their pictures. The girls asked us if we had any lipstick, and several small ones just said “money money?” We had lunch at a restaurant on some campgrounds, and decided it was very good. This was the first time we’d had halvah on the dessert table, and as it was our guide’s first time visiting that restaurant he said he’d definitely tell all his friends and bring future tour groups there. I was tired after lunch, so I went back to the hotel while my girlfriend went on the carpet factory tour. I wrote some postcards and watched a French movie (the subtitles were also in French, and using them I was able to keep track of the plot), then decided I wanted to take a nap. I took the key off the keyring, and wrote our last names on an envelope. I dropped the key into the envelope and put it just outside the door so my girlfriend could get in without having to wake me. It turned out she had bought a large wool-on-cotton carpet for a room on the bottom floor of our house. Unfortunately that’s where the cats like to eat whatever they catch and bring in, so we’ll have to devise a way to keep them out of that room. Before dinner I took a picture of the view from our window. About 85-90% of the buildings we’ve seen in Turkey have red tiled roofs. I’ve never seen anything like this - no matter where you look, there are the same red tiles, in varying conditions matching the state of the house beneath.

Cappadocia Day One

Now that we’ve come inland a bit, it’s easier to get away with wearing only one shirt. In the larger coastal cities, if we wore just a turtleneck or t-shirt all the men stared at us. I’m pretty sure this doesn’t happen to the older women in our group. We’ve found ourselves wearing a sweatshirt or other overshirt in addition to whatever else we’re wearing; my girlfriend noticed even the local girls who don’t cover their hair still layer their clothing as we are. They don’t seem to stare as much in Cappadocia, fortunately. I was glad to see a variety of cereals at breakfast. They still had corn flakes, but they also had sweetened corn flakes, a granola-type cereal, and a few I couldn’t identify. Unfortunately the orange drink is only almost bearable, as it’s obviously Tang. We went to the Göreme Open Air Museum in the morning. I was impressed by what the ancient Christians could do with a piece of rock, but felt antsy the whole time. Lunch was awfully boring; our guide later said it used to be a good place but apparently the management changed. In the afternoon we went to one of Cappadocia’s numerous pottery factories. We were given a demonstration of how they make the painted plates, and then we were taken for a demonstration of their red clay work. When the artist had finished making a teapot, the factory guide asked for a volunteer. Nobody else was speaking up, so I went ahead and raised my hand. He gave me a pair of clown-type pants, in orange and of course way too big for me. I couldn’t kick the wheel and follow instructions at the same time, so the artist kept the wheel going and helped me make the shape. I’m not sure what I was supposed to be making, but because of the hole in the bottom we decided it was a flowerpot. By the time I got my hands scrubbed clean, the group had moved on to the “we gave you a tour, now buy our expensive stuff” room. We liked a lot of the pieces (including an Artemis statue about 5 feet tall for nearly $8000), but just couldn’t afford any of it. After dinner most of the group went to a folklore night, which included native dancing and belly dancing. The native girls had several beautiful costumes, and I noticed they made noises similar to those the Hungarian girls made when we saw the Hungarian dance performance. They didn’t seem to be calling to each other as the Hungarians did, but the noise was the same high-pitched trilling. The belly dancer wasn’t very good, but she recruited a member of our group and a Chinese tourist for a play lesson - she made both of them take off their shirts and imitate what she was doing. The drinks were free, so in addition to peach juice and lemon Fanta, I also tried a bit of raki, an alcoholic drink made with anise. It smelled like licorice all right, but it tasted awful. In about the middle of the show, the native dancers pulled everybody out of their seats and tried to lead us in a dance. It was mostly chaos, but I finally recognized it as a hora.