Well…where to begin? First off, we went down to a late dinner last night in the dining room – R had the chicken shish, and I had the vegetable egg roll – neither of us was starving, as we only had lunch at 2 p.m. They had another small (3 person) musical group in the dining room, like Friday night, playing some lovely traditional Turkish music; very fun! Back up to the room for our last night in the wonderful Sanliurfa Hilton Garden Inn …
Up about 6 and down to breakfast before 7; checked out by 7:15 a.m. and then tried to find a bank. Well…it certainly wasn’t easy! Unlike the other wonderful towns we have been visiting and staying in, finding anything in “town center” was difficult – certainly complicated by the fact that they were manually tearing up the streets…We spotted an ATM kiosk, but then I had to make a U-turn in the middle of the street, as the rest of the street was being removed at the moment…UGH! Finally, with money from the ATM, we turned our faces westward, and high-tailed it out of town. (As a note, we were asked what we thought of the “East” by the owner of our current hotel, and when I said it was far from my favorite place; that it seemed to be rather different, he nodded his head and mumbled “Arabs.” So…whatever that means…)
We took the tollway to Gaziantep and then got off and started cross country, up into the mountains. As it turns out, Cappadocia is in a high valley between mountain ranges, which explains the weird formations we are seeing. It took about 7 hours to get to Kayseri, which is the nearest city of any size here – and there are almost a million people there! We are continually marveling at how we go from one town we’ve never heard of to another town we’ve never heard of – and voila! A million people! Whew! Our Turkish geography is sadly lacking! Somewhere up in the mountains, we ran into rain – and kept running in to rain, all the way to Goreme! The difficulty we are having with our windshield wipers – we may try to find a garage or Hyundai place tomorrow, as it is really dangerous to drive when you cannot see out!
So…about half an hour out of Kaseri, the terrain changes – and suddenly, we were in the land of Fairy castles (which is what these huge piles of tufa – a kind of volcanic rock from the nearby extinct volcanoes - are called!) – they were everywhere! We had, of course, seen photos, but nothing really prepares you for seeing them up close and personal. They are amazing! And there are windows and door carved everywhere! We drove to the Goreme bus station, and the man at the information desk called our hotel – Sultan Cave Suites – for us. It took about 10-15 minutes, but finally the manager arrived, and we followed him up the hill. The Suites are lovely, and we’re in room 311, which is at the top of the hotel (near the car) rather than at the bottom of the hotel. So…here is our cave – complete with A/C, heating (which we may need tonight!), WiFi and satellite TV! We have a private terrace out the front, and balcony off the back, and the bathroom has not only a HUGE shower compartment for Robert, but a BIG Jacuzzi tub for me! Yee-ha!! Also, the view from our balcony reminds us very much of Northern Arizona -- without the tufa towers, however!
Had a nice meeting with the owner, who made suggestions for how we can occupy our time while we’re here. Hopefully tomorrow, our 30th Wedding Anniversary, will be spent on a balloon ride over Cappadocia; we’ll hope the weather clears up! As it was, the manager treated us to a lovely bottle of white wine on our patio to celebrate! People are really nice in Turkey!
Back to our room to settle in, and decided to walk downnnnn into town. I can only say that the walk down was MUCH more fun than the walk back up! At any rate, we walked around town in the rain (and for once, we actually had our umbrellas with us!), picked up some water and munchies, then headed back up. We’re eating here tonight – a “traditional” Turkish restaurant, so have absolutely NO idea what to expect! I do know that we’re hungry, though, so hopefully we’ll be (almost) ready for (almost) anything!
Much love,
m
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