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.

Imagination point and Pink Valley- Kapadokya, Turkey

The previous post in this series is here.. The reason I put this link is because sometimes there are trips before other trips can be blogged and this thing looks like the Inception movie. Hopefully the links help in stitching together a timeline. Squarespace seems to have become bad at searching and showing the right results in the blog in recent times. Think their new AI is trying to understand the blog timelines and went “screw this guy.. too jumpy in his timelines”

Where were we? Yes.. After that pottery stop and lunch we went and stopped at Imagination point, a place where the rock formations are very interesting, followed by another stop at Pink Valley. This is apparently close to where the balloons land. Our driver used a back route to get us to an unofficial view point. It was 100+ degrees out and we wanted to get out and right back in after taking pictures. That was the plan till I decided to do Yoga poses overlooking Pink Valley. The rest of the group went back into the van, but my darling wife did stay back to help take photos.

Short video highlight reel

After this we were going to be on a longer drive. So folks took a nap while we went to our next big stop which was the biggest tour highlight!

Anatolya's famous pottery- at Avanos Kapadokya

The previous post in this series is here..

Our next stop on the tour was a short drive away to Avanos. We crossed a river and saw a lot of brick makers on the way. Then we came to a rock gallery that was pretty much cut into a cave. The video says it all.. the have some amazing artists who have been hand painting these pieces for 30 to 40 years and it is fascinating to watch their hands play with that brush. “You get good at what you practice” is something we hear in yoga class.. that came to mind.

Not a single false step and with a lot of imagination! We walked through the gallery, then got a little pottery demo, and finally it was time to say bye. Our fellow tourists bought stuff, but given we were traveling without check in bags, just had to be content with watching. They do ship to the US but that was for larger pieces.

Right outside this place Ali Baba was selling butta .. there was a heated debate on having that before lunch. Again by a 3:1 veto the ladies decided to go for it. My logic vs. Ali Baba’s silent marketing where he gave them a look and roasted the corn with such care… I had no chance!

Then we stopped by a large rest stop place that had a buffet. All the tour buses stopped here. There were plenty of vegetarian options. Our guide had lunch tickets. Anything else like bottled water or juices were extra. (so keep some Euro or Turkish currency handy!). After lunch we were off to see more rock formations ..

Here are a few pictures of our Avanos experience..

and a video highlights reel..

Learned a lot in this segment. Tulips came from Turkey! Tulips were the symbol for god in ancient Islam. The tree of life which we had seen just two days back in Topkapi palace but had not connected as a “tree of life”, etc.

First we thought this was a marketing stop. Turned out to be one of the highlights of the tour! The artwork in this place is amazing.. just be careful when walking around. You break it, you bought it and most of the pieces are in the few hundred dollar range!