Cappadocia Cave Suites Goreme

... the landing positing and then the balloon bounced once, twice, three times before finally coming to a stop with plenty of room to spare. <br><br>After climbing so high, about 1.7kms, it would have been disappointing to land nice and safely and smoothly. All told a remarkable and once in a lifetime opportunity and one I was really lucky to experience.<br><br>The rest of the day was spent hiking through the valleys - Love valley, named for the phallic rock formations, imagination ...

... was carved into a cave. There was a woman there dancing all by herself in a completely ridiculous "sexy" manner in the middle of the bar. Lindsey got up to join her, but the other woman was not interested in Lindsey stealing her spotlight and refused to dance with her. As more and more people went to dance, she was overshadowed. Lindsey and Sarah ended up getting pulled into a Russian style huddle complete with leg kicking in unison with a group of Korean tourists.<br><br ...

... a bad hotel. They have never purchased an expensive beer. They know the best places for everything.<br><br>This is what they told us for all of the 7 k walk and all of the hour long lunch.<br><br>Let's see, they'd spent a month in Manhattan, but gosh, Turkish food was SO expensive, and beers at 5 lira ($3.33 roughly for 500 mL) were just outrageous. <br><br>"You know where the cheapest beer is? London."<br><br>They were so full of it... Honestly, they somehow had a story ...

... a bit of the Cappadocia region already and could show the hundreds of pictures detailing the ever-changing landscape from sunrise to sunset. We feel lucky that we caught it in early spring with wild flowers and patches of grass growing along the "lunar landscape", but imagine if you can this scenery in the middle of summer with no growth or in the middle of winter with snow covering these mounds. Thus there is no bad time to visit this place.

... midnight, we turn in for the night and our room is freezing. We look out the window and to our surprise it&#8217;s snowing. We are from California and to actually see it snow is a rare treat for us. It should make for an interesting day at the Open Air Museum tomorrow. As an FYI we packed for a European summer and have very little clothing that will help shield us from this kind of weather.<br><br>In the morning, we layer up ...

... The poplars are a tradition whereby a sapling is planted every time a boy is born.  When the boy is old enough to get married, the tree is cut down and the income from the wood is then used to start their new life.  After this valley, we moved onto lunch in this charming floating river restaurant in a town called Belisirma.  Hugo has decided to post pictures of all the food we're eating - we'll do a food entry tomorow.  After lunch, we ...

... i got my wish. i had a test earlier today in my turkish class and now that that is over, i have the rest of the day to relax and catch up on my lack of sleep from the weekend. oh, and in other good news, i learned how to play tavla (backgammon in english) - consider me officially obsessed :) ok, tired and hungry... i am going to upload photos for your viewing pleasure... foux du fa fa p.s. - Cappadocia is a form of the ancient Hittite word meaning "Land of Beautiful Horses"

... rly phall&#305;c, but very cool! Many of the ch&#305;mneys are actually be&#305;ng l&#305;ved &#305;n/ have been turned &#305;nto houses- they are w&#305;cked! Last n&#305;ght we were &#305;nv&#305;ted for a free meal and a talk on carpets by th&#305;s guy- I was expect&#305;ng to be bored w&#305;tless and &#305;n no danger whatsoever of buy&#305;ng anyth&#305;ng, but &#305;t turned out to be fasc&#305;nat&#305;ng, and we found out loads about the or&#305;g ...

... terminated at the hilly modern town of Nevsehir and we transferred to a minibus that took us down into the Goreme valley in the mid-afternoon. As soon as the minibus crested the hill overlooking the valley and we saw the panorama below us, we began to be amazed. We have been here for two days now and we are still in a state of awe. Why ?<br><br>The valley that we are currently in was filled with the ash from several nearby volcanos a few million years ago. Since then the ash ...