At last a wauw
Trip Start
Jun 27, 2008
1
18
51
Trip End
Aug 07, 2008
Urgup,
Cappadocia,
Turkey
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
Overnight busses in China are really cool, coz you're lying down in an actual bed, so you can sleep. In Danish overnight busses the seats can be changed into something very bed-like. But these seats in the bus from Antalya to Ürgüp was just normal slightly recling bus seats, so even if the kid hadn't been screaming its head off, we wouldn't have got much sleep.
After lunch we headed out to the Göreme Open-air Musuem. Sorry, I forgot, a little back-story is needed here.
Right now we are visiting the region in Turkey called Cappadocia/Kapadokya, which is famous for its amazing rock formations. Many thousand years ago there was a lot of volcano activity in the area, which then covered the softer ground in vulcanic rock. Over time the rock has eroded, so now the region is covered in a volcanic lunar landscape, with tall rock pillars all over. Furthermore ancient civilisations found out that it was really easy to carve the rock, so they lived inside these rock formations, people aren,t living there anymore, but you can still see their dug-outs.
At Göreme Open-air Museum you can view one such village of dug-outs, including beautiful dug-out churches with murrals.
The other in the group stayed at the museum for a couple of hours, but I had to go back to Ürgüp early so I could make it to the post office before they closed. In Antalya yesterday I, accidently, well, maybe not that accidently, bought a pair of shoes. Purpleish red patent leather, and the cost only 40 Lira, which is about 160kr. But travelling with stilettoes in a rucksack is not all that easy, so they had to be send home.
The rest of the day was spend exploring town a bit (after getting lost for about 45 min. on my way from the busterminal to the hotel (of which I had forgotten the name)) Here this evening most of the group went to a Turkish Cultural show to see belly dance and that stuff, but I would rather just relax. So I and one of the Kiwi-couples went out for a quiet dinner.
Until today I hadn't been impressed with Turkey, but I have to admit that Cappadocia definitely is impressing. And not to mention the weather, as we are at an altitude of 1100m it quite cool at night and wonderful during the day. In the morning as we drove into town we saw balloons rising from the valleys (ballooning is a favoured tourist activity around here - I would love to do it, but it's just waaaayyy to expensive) The lunar landscape and the balloons hanging, seemingly motionless in the sky, that was a pretty sight.
Well, it's getting late and I'm still quite tired, so I'll head home.
Take care.
Eva Maria
