TURKEY December 28, 2009: Americans in Turkey – Day 11

Kapodokya, Turkey

Greetings from an unusually balmy Anatolia region. We truly lucked out. It’s about 62 degrees here and we had expected it to be around 32. It’s sunny and gorgeous.

Today we headed south to Ilhara Valley – a 500 ft gorge created by the Melendiz River through the volcanic rock. The drive to Ilhara was longer than we expected. We’ve been using a rather abstract line drawing map provided by the hotel.. Turns out to be totally out of scale (sort of like they needed to fit all these areas on an 8.5 x 11″ piece of paper so they moved towns around to get them to fit)… Anyway, about 90 minutes after we started out, we were in the Ilhara Valley. Given that there really aren’t any tourists during this time of year, information is pretty slim (which is either problematic or exciting – depending how you look at it.. I think we like it much better this way; very few trinket shops are open; barely anyone trying to be your guide or to to sell you a carpet – indeed we are on day 12 and still no carpet!)

We read the guidebook section on the Ilhara Valley so it seems as if the typical entry point is at the south in the town of Ilhara and then you climb 400 steps down to start the hike through the valley floor along the river… About halfway (the entire hike is about 5 miles in one direction) there is a little village called Belarismi (sp?) And then you continue north to Seleme where you exit the valley floor. Since we were coming from the north, we thought we might as well just start at Seleme at the southern end and do the hike in reverse. We also figured we might not go the whole way and figured you could exit at Belarismi. The guidebook said taxis could be located at any of these three points (in order to get us back to our car which we left in Seleme)..  So off we went..

About 200 meters on our hike, we were met by Ehmet – a young Turk who hung around and followed us wherever we went.. It was clear that he knew the valley well and hustled people to be their guide. Despite the fact that we really didn’t want a “guide”… after a short time it became obvious that the “trail” was not marked and that it wasn’t a simple thing like following the river (which by the way changes drastically from a frisky, fast-moving river to a trickle of a stream and back again) – at many points you climb about 50′ or more over rocks to continue, and there are no guideposts. So Ehmet became our walking partner. I imagine that in touristy months you could go alone, because you’d just follow people in either direction. During the entire hike (2 hours) we only ran into two other tourists (from Paris), two local Turks fishing in the stream, and about four locals who were cutting branches for firewood (they lived in some of the caves in the valley). I cannot imagine doing this hike in the summer (although that is apparently when visitors come) because temperatures average over 100 degrees and the area is filled with mosquitoes.

Oh – somewhere midway on our journey the family that was gathering firewood came running up to us.. Turns out I had dropped my glasses somewhere (they were in my vest pocket) and they returned them.. I didn’t even know they were missing.

Our hike was good and tiring (good prep for Mike’s supposed trek down the Grand Canyon in May??)..  When we got to Belarisme, we climbed to see one of the many many churches built into the rocks. The one we visited was from the 11th century – some frescoes are still obvious. The monks built the churches and in later years when the Ottomans came they destroyed all evidence of Christianity and burned the churches (obviously since the structure is carved out of the rock the shell remains; they also destroyed the faces in the frescoes.)

Naturally, Ehmet had a “cousin” in Belarisme who could drive us back to Seleme to get our car.

Then we took off to drive around the valley to the southern side and at least see that end in the town of Ilhara. By the way, gas is $8 gallon!

By then it was mid afternoon and we headed to Goreme to the Hamam in the center of town. I should mention that Goreme is a world heritage site and the town is filled with caves and fairytale chimney structures interspersed with more modern (200 year old?) houses – naturally it’s filled with cafes and trinket shops as well. I imagine the town is crawling with tourists in the summer – evidenced by the fact that at least one entrepreneur named his café “The Flintstones”…

The hamam was just what the doctor ordered. It starts with some mud painted on your face.. Followed by a quick shower, followed by about 15 minutes in the sauna… then shower… then you lay on a heated marble platform .. After a few minutes the masseuse comes and scrubs you with a rough cloth.. And also splashes water all over you… Then back to the hot marble platform (in this case a very large round marble slab – maybe 20 ft in diameter – the masseuse washes you with very soapy water.. And then does a massage with the bubbly water… they also wash your hair.. Then back to the shower and then a dip in a ritual pool (which is probably a little like a mikvah??).. The hamam had two parts – one for men and one for women, although men who work at the hamam seemed to pop in from time to time in the women’s section to bring bottles of water.

OK…. we are totally clean, well exercised, and ready for dinner. We’re eating locally (in Urgup) tonight, so we can spend time packing as we head to Konya in the morning (not expecting much … doesn’t sound too exciting, but it’s a stopping off point so that we don’t have to drive 7 or 8 hours straight to Antalya.)

Take care –
Fern