I’ve been dreaming of Cappadocia’s moonscapes for years.
The region in the middle of Turkey is famous for its weird, wavy rock formations and wild shapes and shadows. The fairy chimneys, as they’re called, are a result of soft volcanic rock being buffeted about strangely by the winds of time.
Cappadocia was the number one place I wanted to visit when I moved to Turkey. So when my dear friend Lucy suggested we go mere days after I returned from Amsterdam, I jumped at the chance.
Our trip was cut a little short by an unfortunate stomach bug (Surprise! Taking a trip less than a week after you’ve returned from a deportation disaster is, from a health-standpoint, not necessarily the brightest idea), but even losing a day to illness couldn’t diminish how really AWESOME Cappadocia is.
Lucy and I decided to Couchsurf and ended up in the village of Avanos with a face-painting bike enthusiast named Caner, who not only cooked us amazing meals—Caner, it turns out, is also a chef—but also provided us with maps and itineraries for our whole stay.
He also informed us that in order to get around Cappadocia, we would have to hitchhike.
Um.
So, in certain circumstances I can be very brave—heck, I moved to a foreign country all by myself with no job lined up—but hitchhiking is one of those things that I’ve never been tempted to try. Hitchhiking is not so commonplace in the States these days, and I’ve heard so many cryptic horror stories that, as a woman traveling alone, I haven’t been eager to give hitchhiking a shot.
But of course, I wasn’t traveling alone. I was with Lucy.
We totally hitchhiked.
Some notes on this: hitchhiking is actually VERY common in Turkey. Maybe it’s an offshoot of the famed Turkish hospitality. It’s so expected that cars often stopped and asked if we needed rides when we forgot to wave them down. Basically, we aren’t very good at hitchhiking, and it didn’t really matter. Except for one guy who we got a weird vibe from, we had absolutely no problems with hitchhiking—in fact, it made getting around Cappadocia SO much easier. (That all said—I’d prefer not to do it again.)
The first afternoon we arrived, we headed off to Uchasir to climb a castle and begin to explore Cappadocia’s wild sights. The area was mostly deserted: though Uchasir is lined by endless hotels, we saw few tourists on the roads leading to Uchasir Castle. This was fine; it gave us a chance to take in the landscape that was unfolding behind us with little distraction. Once we climbed to the top of the castle, the view got even better.
Uchasir was only the first taste. The next day was our day to hike, from Pasabag to the Red Valley and the Rose Valley and then on to Goreme!
We hitchhiked to Pasabag, where the landscape shifted into Cappadocia’s iconic (and rather suggestive-looking) fairy chimneys. Lucy made dirty jokes about them all day because she’s a classy Brit, folks.
But seriously—the landscape was eerie and EPIC.
It really does look like the American West had a lovechild with another planet—seeing regular people scrambling over these strange rock formations was jarring and very, very beautiful.
Soon the people fell away and we found ourselves walking through lonely fields, hoping that the lone water-vendor we passed had given us the correct directions to Cavusin, and onwards to the Red and Rose Valleys. After a brief stop for lunch in Cavusin (where the waiter gave us more trekking maps—Turkish hospitality, man) we headed off for our hike.
This was my favorite part of our trip. Once we were in the valleys, we saw almost nobody—just the two of us and the undulating landscape. The path was minimally marked but we had no problem; we wove our way through giant caverns, trickling mud streams, and bizarre rock formations with ease.
That is, until the path dropped us at the bottom of a giant hill that appeared to take us out of the valley. We weren’t sure if we were still headed the right way or if our giddy admiration of the landscape had caused us to wander off the right road, so one of us climbed to the top to scout it out.
(I took pictures.)
We found ourselves in spongy farmland with a panoramic view of the valleys we’d just hiked through and the sound of the cars in the distance. The road was located, thumbs were deployed, and soon we had picked up a quick ride to the Goreme Open Air Museum.
Which was… crowded.
After a hike so secluded that we felt like we had the whole valley to ourselves, Goreme Open Air Museum felt like a zoo. Tourists were EVERYWHERE; at one point we joined up with a tour group of middle-aged Brits because there was no other way to get inside the caves they were admiring. At least Lucy had the accent; I kept my American lips sealed.
Goreme was still fascinating—the caves churches are filled with old wall paintings, which is pretty cool—but the crowd, combined with the admission fee, made me nostalgic for our afternoon trek.
Our wander back brought us to a whimsy tree, with famed Cappadocia pottery dripping off the branches. We paused, taking in the amazing world around us as the sun started to dip. It was time to hitch home.
Cappadocia is completely unlike Istanbul, but despite (or perhaps because of) that I ADORED it, really and truly. Its surreal stonescapes was visual candy for me. The end of my trip was wiped out by a stomach bug… but it’s okay. I’ll be back.
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