Staying at a cave hotel, missed chances and saying bye to Turkey

The previous post in this series is here..

After a quick dinner at the Indian place in the village, when Jr. and me walked back up to our cave room, we were given the news that the little one will not be joining us for the balloon ride in the morning. She will be resting and hydrating and will not be up before the sun. There was to be no negotiation and given my history of saying things like “we have come all this way and we may not come here again.. etc.” there was a family restraining order of me speaking anything within ear shot of the litle one. Gave her a hug, asked her to sleep and we all crashed. It had been a long day. All day tours can be fun but draining. Too much information for the brain and a lot of walking without realizing it.. with the potential to end up dehydrated.

The hotel was told that we will be three people going for the balloon ride. We woke up at 5AM and made it to the hotel entrance where a bus picked us up. After picking up a lot more people we ended up driving to the balloon launch point. There were a 1000+ people waiting around trucks with the balloons and every company had a breakfast table setup with croissants and coffee.

Unfortunately, after an hour of waiting, our ride was cancelled. The winds were too heavy and the air traffic control did not give a green signal. Our guides said “no more waiting, we go back. we will drop you off and you will get full refund”. An hour later we were back in the hotel with only a few photos of us at sunrise to show for it. The little one was still fast asleep. When we went to breakfast later and told her we never went up on the ballooons, she just rolled her eyes and was happy she slept in. Good news was she was back to her normal self. Given our morning was a wash, we just packed, ate breakfast late (almost made it a brunch) and told the kids that we were going down to the village.

The balloon refund came in local currency. It was 120 dollars per person and what were we to do with so much in local currency when we were leaving Turkey same evening? San was determined to exchange it to Euro or USD and we walked an hour and a half to every travel agent, a Western union, local post office, etc. etc. in the Goreme village, with no luck.. Finally one of the travel offices agreed to change it. We lost some in the transaction but it was still better than airport exchange rates. When we walked back to the hotel, the girls were ready to leave.

We took some pictures in the verandah of the hotel. We have to say that this was a unique experience staying in a cave. The Kelebek Cave Hotel was excellent. The food was great. The rooms were good. The service was excellent. It is on top of the hill so everytime you walk down, you get quite a workout walking back up. All said and done, if you are a fit person, this is an amazing place to stay. Strongly recommend it.

A video of the special cave hotel experience…

It was time for the ride back to Nevshehir airport in the shared van. This time it was in broad daylight and the driver was good.

We flew back to Istanbul, then after a two hour wait at the airport and a lot of walking within the airport, flew out to Naples. Was reminded of my Turkish friend again as we flew past

The kids had combined the Amalfi coast with this trip as a “fair” compromise. All of us enjoyed all places at the end. So it worked out. Just before leaving the Kelebek hotel, I was informed that given our flight timings and train timings, we had two choices. Pay 250 USD for a one way Uber from Naples airport to Sorrento or rent a car for all three days which would be the same 250 USD. Six eyes were looking at me.. and I said fine. Will drive. That turned out to be a disguised blessing.

Will continue this series from Naples later today..

Living under a rock gets a new meaning - Kaymakli and a few more stop

Previous post on this all day tour of Kapadokya is here..

It was very hot outside and thankfully we were visiting the biggest attraction in this area. The underground cave city of Kaymakli. Three floors down are open to visitors, the rest are still being inspected for safety. It goes down more floors.

The locals used to live underground while waring armies would cross the surface, sometimes for months. It was temporary refuge, built with a lot of safety features. You enter it through an un assuming gap in the top of what looks like an animal shelter. They would put the animals there and no one would walk past the dung into this hole.. once in, it opened up to so many chambers. 30,000 people lived here to survive. There were rooms, kitchens, labor delivery places, wine storage, water storage, all cramped for space and not easy to navigate without bumping your head but survival demanded it and they managed it within these confines. There was ventilation and temperatures were controlled. Human ingenuity at its best thousands of years ago!

Again, the pictures and videos do NOT even come close to the experience of walking through these underground dwellings. We are a resilient species, but we are also our worst enemy as a species. No other organism kills more of its own kind like we do.

Here are the photos..

and a video highlights reel..

If you go to Kapadokya (or Cappadocia) please make it a point to visit this cave city!

After the cave city tour, we got to drive a bit and get to Pidgeon valley. The whole place has the birds taking over small caves in the wall faces of the rocks. There was a jewelry store across this stop. They sell a gemstone found only in that area that changes color in sunlight. This is called Zultanite! They also mine Onyx which is local to the region. The jewelry was gorgeous and tasteful. If you take a bunch of ladies with you into a store like that.. be mentally prepared for what is to follow.

After this stop we went to the Uchisar castle, which is now a police lookout point. We can only see it from below. It is yet another cone which has been holed out into a castle! Got some photos from this place including the dunes facing it. We drove back to our hotel to see a gorgeous sunset, said bye to our fellow tourists and tourguide.

The little one was not feeling well. She wanted local cuisine and I wanted Indian food which would be safe. Was also feeling weird what with going in and out of air conditioning, caves etc. So we went to an Indian place in the village. It was a steep walk down. It was good food. Good service. San walked back up with the little one, while Jr. and me went shopping in the village for magnets and a T-shirt.

We were worried about what was to come the next day.

Hot air balloons of Kapadokya, Turkey

The previous post in this trip to Turkey and Italy is here..

After we finished the Hammam and lunch in Istanbul, we took a one our drive to Istanbul airport and after waiting there for a few hours flew into Nevshehir airport. We had arranged transport through the hotel (we were to pay per person and were told to pay in Turkish currency but the total was in Euro!). Had to have it ready when we we entered the van. The van guy waited till he could find some last minute unplanned passengers to fill and finally after 35 minutes started towards Kapadokya. A middle aged woman who was flirty decided to sit in the front set next to the driver. It was dark and windy roads with no lights and she kept showing him her phone and making conversation. The driver was obviously taken in with this and was not focusing on the road. The rest of us got very nervous after the driver swerved a few times. So as a collective we spoke up and asked her to stop talking to him or distracting him while driving. The rest of the ride was relatively uneventful. Finally after dropping off 80% of the folks we got our turn.

The staff at the cave hotels were nice. The manager gave us a crash course on what to expect and what to do in the morning. Will write a separate post on the cave hotels. The rooms are carved from the rocks. They are all on a hill. We were all tired but I decided to see the balloons rise at 5AM. Turns out they went up only closer to 6! It was beautiful to see. San joined me on the roof for some photos and decided to go dress up and come back for more photos!

Once the sunrise was done, we went back woke up the kids and had a nice breakfast wtih the view of the last few balloons coming down. Then it was time to go on our all day package tour of Kapadokya. There are a thousand odd photos of all the places we visited in the next 8 hours.. so will create mini blogs of each place over the next few days..

We were booked to go on the balloons the next morning and San, myself and Jr. did wake up really early and go to the balloon starting place. Heavy winds made them cancel the rides for the day. So balloon away while the sun shines , is the moral of the story. We were returned to our hotels after sitting in a van for an hour and our money refunded. If we want to be on the balloons, we have to make another trip! Decided that watching them with chai in hand was as good an experience.

A lot of those photos were taken before the balloons started.. (you will see it in the video). The night sky was so clear inspite of the lights from the cave hotels. Got to see so many constellations, planets with just the iPhone!

A video highlights reel including some time lapses, some slow motions…

Book every morning you are there… you never know which way the wind blows!