Goreme Day 3, Turkey

This was our third day of hiking in Cappadocia. After our breakfast, we grabbed the backpack and headed towards the Open Air Museum again, but this time we walked to the end of the parking lot to start the trail. While we were walking to the museum, some hot air balloons were being deflated. They are really big! We thought about doing a tour, but it was very expensive and we already had very good views of the valleys on our first day when we hiked over to the top of the plateau. The first part of our hike was a small trail going through some gardens and more caves. It was about three kilometers long before we had to cross the main road to head toward Red and Rose Valleys.

We walked down in Red Valley, before coming back up in order to go in Rose Valley. In between we stopped for lunch on top of a big rock overlooking Red Valley. The views were so great, it felt like our eyes were not big enough to be able to take everything in all at once. After our rest, we walked down Rose Valley. The trail was fun, and we walked by many caves again, some of which we could easily explore. One of them had a little wooden bridge, so we decided to have a look. Turns out it was an amazing church carved inside the rock. From the outside it didn't look like much, but the inside was definitely worth seeing.

When we got out of the valley, we followed a little trail that was on the GPS map but not on the paper map. We arrived in another little valley filled with cave buildings that we could explore. AA made friends with a really skinny stray dog before we continued our walk back to town. It was getting very hot and the sun was pretty strong as well. We came back to the bungalow after 11.2 kilometers.There is the hiking trail link:

Goreme Day 3

And some pictures of our day:


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is what the church looked from the outside

 

 

 

 

Please read carefully so you don't get lost!

Goreme day 2, Turkey

We started our second day of hiking in Cappadocia by finding the head of the Pigeon Valley trail that starts in town. It was not easy to find as the paths are not clearly indicated. We finally made it to the beginning of the trail and hiked our way down the valley. At one point the path was unfortunately blocked so we decided to try to climb the rocks to go over it. It didn't quite work, we made it up but then we would have had to do some serious rock climbing, so we decided that coming down and trying to find another path was a better and safer idea. Thanks to Seb's GPS application in his phone, we were able to follow the path we had originally planned on taking. There are no indications to follow to make sure one is on the right path so we had to guess most of the time. After enjoying the apple trees, we crossed the main road to get into White Valley, which led to Love Valley.  Walking in the valleys was really cool as we got to see more rock formations. It was also pretty quiet as in October there are not that many tourists in town and in the trails. We had a great time and really enjoyed being out in the nature and seeing amazing scenery. After our 11.8 kilometers hike, we went back to the bungalow to relax and shower. Later we went out again to mail a few things back home and buy some food in the supermarket. We settled on a traditional Jordanian meal as making supper without a kitchen can be challenging! We had some delicious bread, lebaneh, hummus, olive oil and homemade za'arta.

A couple night shots around Goreme:

 

These are in the town of Goreme:

Old flourmill

Buildings in Goreme

The Pigeon Valley:

 

 

 

 

 

 

The White Valley and the Love Valley:

 

 

 

 

 

 

And there is the trail:

Goreme Day 2

Goreme day 1, Turkey

After our short stop in Istanbul, we were heading to the middle of the country, in the region of Cappadocia, where we spent a week. We had an early start at 5:30 AM, walked to the shuttle bus stop,  and waited for it to arrive as we were too fast getting ready. We sat in the minibus who brought us to the main station. We then waited while looking at the chaos of Turkish buses and cars all trying to have priority. Our coach turned up about one hour late, and we were the only ones in it for the first 45 minutes, until we reached the next station. Some people entered the bus and strangely the company seems to be only assigning seats starting at the front. So the back of the coach is empty and the only few people are crammed in the front. We received complimentary crackers and coffee and enjoyed the free WiFi for our really long bus ride. 

We stopped in a rest area for a quick pit stop, and also stopped in the very modern and huge Ankara bus station. We didn't feel the need to visit Ankara, even though it is the capital, there doesn't seem to be much to see. When we stopped in Nevsehir, a minibus was ready to bring us to Goreme. It must have been the driver's last run because he drove like a maniac (110 in a 50 km zone). We arrived in Goreme, found our little bungalow, put our bags down and went for supper. We had Gozleme, a traditional pastry dish filled with meat and/or veggies. A good recipe to keep in mind for the future!

We had a really good night of sleep in our small cabin. When we woke up, we had breakfast and started our first excursion in Capadoccia. We followed the street towards the Open-Air Museum, and kept moving all the way to the Sunset Viewpoint. After 5 km, that is when the real hike started. We climbed on top of the plateau at 1360 meters and had amazing views over the different valleys. We saw multiple caves carved in the stone. We did a grand tour and had a great time. We really enjoy hiking to the top of mountains, when we can see very far, and especially when we are by ourselves. 

Here is a link to the hiking map.

Goreme Day 1

After our 14.4 kilometers hike, we took a well deserved rest in our little bungalow. For supper, we splurge in a nice restaurant where we tried the pottery lamb and pottery veggies. It was very tasty and filing with the complimentary white beans. We bought a bottle of Turkish wine to enjoy in our room.

Here are some pictures of the first day:

We also visited a church carved in the rock on our way back. It was located in the town of Cavusin. There are a lot of those churches in this region. We discovered a lot more in the Ihlara Valley, which was on our forth day in Cappadocia.