Kaya Uchisar

... stone was giving the name of this valley and as usual the walk is a good physical exercise with plenty of impressions of the formations.

Our host leads us up through a small crete and then we enter the Lovers valley from a ...

... to find the baloon, as they have their own pride ;-)).

We finish the morning with a celebration and certificate and then have breakfast at 10:30 in the hotel before we depart to Ilhara valley. This valley is around 100km away and on the way we visit one of the underground cities that have been built in 13/14th century from the Chrıstians, who were living then. These cities are huge tunnels - cave systems carved our of the rock ...

... right at home. I got here just after lunchtime. I did some laundry, got settled in, walked around-more up and down-the hotel and took a long nap. I met a nice young couple from San Francisco, and we walked into the center of town for dinner together. It made for a pleasant evening. Tomorrow I'll go exploring some of the valleys and churches around here. The next day, I'll visit one of the underground cities. It should make for beautiful pictures.

I am writing from the centre of Turkey, 30 feet deep within my very own cave. I have an 'ADSL' internet connection and I am sitting at a pentium powered 'DELL' industries personal computer. 'Manuel' has brought me a soothing hot glass of apple tea (after all it is rather chilly outside) and has just adjusted the central heating to a balmy 24 degrees centigrade. My toes have feeling and my nose is not leaking like a Labour ...

... that the highest he has ever gone was 3000 meters on a training flight. You could see all the way to the volcanic mountain which is what caused all the fairy castles and rock formations in Cappadochia millions of years ago. We slowly dropped down towards the ground, over melon fields and the valleys and pointed fairy castles. We could see the truck with the guys who were supposed to help us land driving around trying to figure out where ...

... the clocks were set at 9:05 which is when Ataturk died in this palace. We then drove to airport to meet dad and fly to Cappadochia. We are staying at hotel that is made into real caves, where people used to live. There are cave houses everywhere, like the Flintstones. It is very cool. The room for Lu and me is tiny and is in the real cave. I have never slept in a cave before. They built these caves beginning in the 4th century and some even before. Really old!

... No sleeping on the floor for me!!! It seems strange to think that the pthers will dsoon be flying home or onto to somewhere else and the trip as such will be over but I am looking forward to the drive back through Europe and not knowing which route we are taking. I'm sure that I will blog in Istanbul so till then take care and keep your fingers crossed that nothing else happens on this journey............... like Germany invading .............................no Victoria

... cell phones for the very first time and learning through trial, error and babbling. All this, of course, set the German women behind us off, giggling and snickering like they were eleven years old getting a look at their first wang. Sigh. Just Croak If It Starts To Hurt After Laynni's parents left for Istanbul to catch their flight home we went to spend a couple days in the lush scenic Ihlara Valley. Beautiful hiking along a quiet little stream set between steep ...

... was the Ihlara Valley were we were scheduled to walk through the gorge and then eat lunch. Since everyone was really hungry (it was already 12:30pm), we convinced the guide to switch the order of those activities. Though we did end up having a bit of a walk before lunch since the path down to the restaurant was covered in snow and impassable by the bus. After lunch we walked for about 20 minutes into the gorge when our guide said we needed to turn ...

... showed us his write-up in the Frommer's guide (very positive) and we started to listen with a bit of interest. We had always intended to buy some carpets in Turkey, but until now were not in the right frame of mind. After looking at a few (dozen) different rugs of different styles, we settled on a couple that we wanted to buy. Let the negotiating begin! Faruk suggested a price for each item and then gave us a small discount. I said that if this ...