Rhonda: This is Sunday September 24, 2023
We were up and out by 4am to the airport to catch our flight to Cappadocia. Cappadocia is a region of Turkey and not a city or a state. I don't remember the town name we flew into but it was just a one hour flight.
Chris: Warning Avgeek post ahead. We had a 6:30 flight from Istanbul to, I think the city we flew to was Kayseri Turkey but how could anyone know for sure ? The flight was on an Airbus A321 and the airplane was at a remote parking area, not at a gate.
We had to take a bus from the terminal to the airplane and walk across the tarmac before dawn to board via air stairs. I just love doing that. Turkish Airlines dominates the Istanbul airport and their airplanes and facilities are everywhere. There were probably 15 or so A321's lined up next to ours and early in the morning like that there had to be close to one hundred Turkish Airlines airplanes either on gates or at remote parking. I really enjoyed seeing it all.
Rhonda: We were met by a driver and he ushered us into a van with two other couples . It was about an hour drive to our hotel. You will not believe where we are staying. It's incredible!
It's called 1811 Cave Hotel. Please look it up because my video won't upload. It's so great! It's literally in a cave. But with electricity, air, and a spa bathroom.
Chris: It's really hard to describe the landscape in Cappadocia, it's the sole reason for people coming here. It's a mountainous area and between the mountains are lower areas with hundreds and hundreds of fairy chimneys I'm sure you know what that is so no need to explain. Honestly I didn't know either. I'll give it a shot, probably not a lot of geologists on here to call me on my ignorance.
As I understand it, at one time there were a lot of active volcanoes in the area, like millions of years ago (I got this). As they erupted they had massive lava flows that created the lower hills wherever the lava flowed. But the volcanos also ejected huge blobs, scientific term, that fell in large piles, wider at the bottom and narrowing upwards. Then it was all covered by layer after layer of ash. The ash layers were realatively soft and eroded away over the eons leaving the harder lava columns intact. They are beautiful and they are everywhere. It is the most unreal landscape I have ever seen. I have no idea if that phenomenon happened anywhere else in the world or not, but it happened here and it is absolutely incredible and beautiful. People come from all over the world to see it.
Rhonda: We just had time to freshen up and our tour guide was here to pick us up. It's with the same other two couples and we have enjoyed their company and getting to know them.
Oh la La it was a Mercedes van and so so nice and comfortable.
The first stop was a Monastery with a cave church. Our guide had us sit at a picnic table while he educated on the history of the Cappadocia area. Because it is in the middle of the county all the traders had to go through there. The locals adapted to making it be the center of trade between other countries and the sea. The highlight was when a cute kitten jumped up on the table and headed right to me to give all her purrs and love. It stayed with me the entire time we were there. 💕
Chris: Rhonda is really good about paying close attention to the history, she even takes notes sometimes because she likes to do Rhonda's history lesson videos. Her take is often extremely accurate in lay terms and pretty funny too. She was super locked in when our guide was explaining the history until she wasn't. Enter really cute kitten.
Add kitten photo when we xan.
Rhonda Then we went to an Underground city . They carved these cities out of the volcano rock in order to hide from invaders. They moved their animals in there with them and kept it stocked with food and water to last at least 90 days. It was big enough for 200 people plus cattle and chickens and other animals. But they must have been tiny people because we had to duck most of the time.
There was an Active archeological site that was interesting. They are finding more underground cities all the time.
Next was Pigeon Valley where as far as you could see there were pigeon houses in the rocks. Pigeons were valuable in several ways, for fertilizer, carriers of messages, and the eggs were mixed with plaster to make the fresco paintings.
Lunch was nice. It was in a small town and upstairs on a balcony with a beautiful view. We had wonderful kebabs and starting really getting to know the Indian couple who had been with us all day. She is very outgoing. And her husband was a little shy but sweet.
We got back to our cave home about 530pm and I was so tired that Chris really had to work to get me out to go to dinner. But I am so glad we did because we found OUR place.
And it has cats. I ordered a can of tuna and fed them with a fork.
Chris: Rhonda was exhausted, so was I guess but I had walked down the hill from our cave to a little restaurant at the bottom to get wine to take to our room. I got there and it was beautiful. I knew I would have to nudge gently to get her out but I also knew she would love it. She went and we had a lovely dinner in a beautiful little restaurant surrounded by amazing views in a fairytale land.
Rhonda. It was such a lovely place that it should be a destination wedding venue. We went any chance we had. We had the same waiter each time and he treated us like royalty. That's one photo above.
I have tried but can't get the rest to upload. So that will have to come later.
Okay day two here is next and starts with a 430am start for a balloon ride!!
Love y'all.
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