Goreme
Trip Start
Feb 05, 2008
1
47
70
Trip End
Ongoing
Goreme,
Cappadocia,
Turkey
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
25 years ago after meeting her Turkish husband in Goreme while on an
extended backpacking trip through Europe and parts of the Middle
East. They got married and had three kids and opened Kose Hostel, not
necessarily in that order. The whole family runs the place, except for
their very active six year old son. I arrived at what is now their
second location, complete with a swimming pool, in this beautiful spot
in west central Turkey after another of those 12 hour overnight bus
rides I so enjoy
Goreme
. The bus was as nice as any I'd had in the past fewmonths. The trip cost me about 40 bucks. Here I could feel I was
finally back on a backpacker trail.
Goreme is set right in the sandstone hoodoo-like hills of the
region known as Cappadocia, one of Turkey's premier attractions. The
area is reminiscent of the hoodoos of Dinosaur Provincial Park but
different. It has been inhabited for centuries and many homes have
been carved out of the hoodoos throughout the area. A popular activity
is to take a hot air balloon trip over the area but the 180 Euro price
tag was a little too rich for my blood
The Flinstone Bar
. Getting up at around 5:30 a.m.to see some 20 or more taking off at the same time would suffice.
Beautiful. In terms of activities I opted to do some hiking and take
the Ihlava Gorge day tour instead. The weather was fantastic. Hot and
dry. The town is quiet and relatively friendly and only a couple of
carpet shops bothered to try to get me to come in and have a look.
The day tour set me back 50 lira (40 dollars) and included lunch,
which sucked, as these package tour lunches often do. There wasn't
much to the trip except we saw one of the old villages on which one of
the Star Wars sets was based. (Don't believe claims that this was the
actual set--somewhere in Egypt got the call.) I actually enjoyed the
requisite tourist trap 'you should buy something here' stop at the onyx
factory
View
. Now I know something about onyx and marble. With all due respect to whomever drew the simple map Dawn gave me of
the area hiking trails, I got lost during one of my attempted hikes
down Zindananu Valley. Early on in I came across a couple who had just
parked their car and were heading in with a picnic basket. The fellow
knew a bit of English. Turns out he's the mayor of one of the adjacent
villages. After stopping to chat and helping ourselves to some of the
hundreds and hundreds of fresh apricots hanging, ripe for the picking
from one of the many trees in the area, he guided me in the right
direction. I had the valley to myself
Goreme in the evening
. The scenery was fantastic.Glad I took some water.
I thought I knew where I was going and was comfortable that I had
my position in sync with the coordinates on the map when after about an
hour and half I came upon a tea-stand and souvenir shop on the trail in
the middle of nowhere. Mustafa gave me some fresh cold water and
invited me for tea and a chat. Married just three months earlier, he
spends his days tending this shop with the company of his german
shepherd puppy, whose name is the turkish word for bastard, since 'he
has no mother or father'. Anyway, turns out I was going the wrong way
and had I kept walking I'd have ended up in the next town some eight or
ten k from Goreme
Cappadocia
. He gave me some more water and set me off in theright direction. The hike I took on day three down Zeml Valley was
much less eventful but every bit as satisfying. So was the dip in the
cool pool afterwards.
Next up, Olympos. Oh boy, another 12 overnight hour bus ride.
