It has been such a wonderful week, and I am finally back on a train (a.k.a my absolute favourite time to write), so I decided I’d sneak in a blog post this week.
We’ve spent the week in Cappadocia; most famous nowadays for its impressive hot air balloon line up, but also for it's incredible rock formations. We were informed that there are sometimes three rounds of balloons in one morning during the peak (with over 150 balloons in each round), with sunrise being the most sought after time slot. We’re a little earlier than peak season, but still typically a decent time to fly. However, entering the week, the forecast looked like this:
So, we didn’t have high hopes. This weather is very unseasonable for the region, and just another example of climate change in action. As Rafik said (you’ll hear more about him later), “the nails of the world are coming out”. He’s a very wise man. We came into Göreme with the plan to make the most of it, and expect little. Göreme, and the whole region of Cappadocia, blew us away. As a major tourist destination, it’s hard to imagine Göreme as being “underrated”, but we think it is. Most people only stayed for 1-2 days, with the aim of taking a hot air balloon flight. After our week there, our suggestion would be, if you have the time, stay for longer. The main reason for that is the hiking.
If you love exploring and hiking, this is the place for you. Every hike we did was magnificent. You can walk from town and still feel completely remote 20 minutes later. We got to explore caves in the fairy chimneys, some of which are 3000 years old (mostly around 1500 years old, when Christianity was outlawed). These caves have been home to many persecuted people over the years. We judge our hikes on reward:effort ratio, and Cappadocia ranks highly. Every part of the hike is beautiful, mystical, or adventurous. We particularly love that people live amongst the caves, and have their own tea stops along the way. You can feel completely alone, and then five minutes later, stop for a freshly squeezed juice, or a couple of cups of tea.
The hikes are also not too arduous, mostly rolling hills, or gradual inclines to the ridges, before descending back into the valleys. Fairy chimneys might be some of the coolest landscapes we’ve seen. It’s not hard to see how George Lucas was inspired when he visited this part of the world (a guide told us this and we have not fact checked, but anecdotally it checks out).
Our absolute favourite hike here was a loop including the Rose and Red valleys. Jerry found it on MapsMe, and we followed the instructions from there. The hike itself is probably 3.5 hours. We started our hike in beautiful weather, intermittently clambering into cave churches and pigeon houses, all the way until we reached the ridge line, ⅔ of the way in. That is when we saw the giant purple thundercloud rolling our way.
I have always been fascinated by weather events. It’s why I watch storm chasing videos on YouTube, something Jerry is bewildered by, but indulges (he tells me info about plane routes across the world over coffee every morning, so we both have our odd fascinations). I also have a serious fear of loud noises. Pop a balloon, watch me full-body flinch. So I danced around excited by the storm, until the lightning got a little too close for comfort. I then freaked every time the thunder boomed. The lightning was relentless. I’ve never been outside in such an intense electrical storm. It definitely straddled the line of incredible and terrifying! Luckily, the rain blew through in waves. We sought shelter in a few different spots on our way down - a few caves, a cafe in the hills where we stopped for some tea while the storm rolled right overhead, the campervan of a kind man named Gary, when we reached the valley floor, and a closed orange juice stand, where we met Günnur and Torsten, from Switzerland. Once the torrential rain blew over again, we walked back into town together (briefly being driven through a newly developed river by an ATV group), and spent the evening chatting over a few drinks. Fingers crossed they visit us in New Zealand! Unfortunately no Switzerland this time around for us, but maybe one day…We had such a great time, and it ended up being the most epic day. We tried to time our hikes to avoid the thunderstorms after that, though. My poor heart can only take so much.
Wednesday was the day we had booked for a hot air balloon flight. All the days before that had been cancelled, so we were pretty sceptical it would go ahead. Jerry’s fabled luck prevailed over the weather forecast, and the balloons were cleared to fly! It was a magical morning. Anyone reading who has lived in Hamilton probably has a similar love of hot air balloons as me - Balloons over Waikato has built this dream in my head for a long time. Jerry took a bit of convincing at first - this was the single most expensive activity of this year. Having done it, we both agree that it was so worth it. Flying in a hot air balloon, with 150 other balloons in the sky, is indescribable. We loved the tranquillity. It was also so cool to fly over the valleys we had recently hiked, looking for familiar landmarks from a very different perspective. Coming down from the flight, we were on such a high (especially as we’d resigned ourselves to not flying at all).
Back at our hotel, it was interesting to witness the perspective of others. Several groups were highly disappointed by the lack of sunrise. I think, because we’d been there for several more days, our expectations were quite a bit different. Their feelings were valid - you pay the same regardless of whether it’s clear blue or cloudy. However, coming away from breakfast that morning, we did reflect a bit on the “Instagram effect”.
Side note: Our reflections on the Instagram effect.
A lot of the media you see around travel nowadays is “the shot”. The perfect angle, with the best lighting, often of a beautiful slender woman in a long flowy dress. It’s natural to want the very best experience when travelling, and it sometimes results in a very distorted view of reality.
We have our fair share of “the shot” moments. We are not immune, and we also contribute to the collection (although we don’t have any long flowy dresses). One of the main ways we contribute is that we often try to take pictures that make it seem like there is no one else there. One of our recent classic “shots”:
The dangers of this mindset is everyone is trying to get to the same spot, sometimes ignoring the rest of what is available. It puts a lot of pressure on infrastructure, safety, and the environment. It can also make for a rather unpleasant experience. We read an article just this week. There is a Lawson convenience store in Japan, with Mount Fuji rising behind it. So many people have tried to take photos there, resulting in tourists climbing buildings, standing on the road, and causing a nuisance in the store - It’s a good example of everyone trying to get “the shot”.
We do not have any answers for this, but instead we tried to reflect how we contribute to the issue, and how we can avoid adding to it. We aren’t going to stop taking photos. However, we aren’t going to crop everyone else out - there are other people at the world-class spots we visit. Sometimes the sky is cloudy. Sometimes they drain the travertines because they’re causing a mosquito problem, and it won’t look exactly like the pictures online. That’s life. We haven’t figured out exactly how to balance our desire to take nice photos (that have us in them), while not falling prey to the fallacy of “the shot”. The fact that we wear track pants and bright blue raincoats helps - it is impossible to look like a model in that combo. This year, we’ve also instigated telling each other when it’s time to put away the camera, and just look. We have a renewed sense of this, following this week. All world class experiences deserve that from us.
Göreme made it easier than we expected to live in the moment, as it offered us so many lovely places to rest and soak in the environment. A special shout out to our man Rafik. Dining at his home-based restaurant in the caves, “Nazer Börek”, was an absolute highlight of our time in Cappadocia. The restaurant offers a world class experience, with the most friendly, down to earth service. We tried most of the different gözleme on their menu, and had plenty of chances to chat with Rafik about his life, the people he has met, and what life is like inside a cave (the temperature stays in the mid teens celsius all year round, regardless of the outside temp. Super cool!) He was so friendly, and the exuberance he showed towards the diners at the restaurant reminded me so much of my dad. He also had the same habit my dad did of repeating the same stories each time we visited. Did you know Helen Clark is a family friend of Rafik’s mum? We didn’t - the first time…By the third time, we just looked at each other and smiled.
We also joined a day tour to visit one of the famous underground cities, clambering through tunnels deep underground.
Of course, we ate well in Göreme (I can hear Chandler Bing’s voice, “could you BE eating any more on this trip?!”). One of the signature dishes of this area is pottery kebab, where a casserole is cooked inside a pot, then broken open for you to eat. Pottery is a big thing in this area, which means there is an amazing array of pottery and ceramics. I am cursed to love ceramics with my whole heart. Ceramics are, in fact, the LEAST practical souvenir you can buy. They are bulky, breakable, and often funky in shape (think handles and spouts, curved edges…) Still, I drag Jerry into every local shop, filled with amazing ceramics, and dream about how I could bring them home.
Eventually, it was time to leave Göreme. From Göreme, we headed to Pamukkale. Pamukkale translates to “cotton castle”, thanks to the white travertines and terraces on the hill. The white terraces were used by Greeks and Romans as baths, when the ancient city of Hierapolis existed.
We had to take an overnight bus to get there, which always comes with some trepidation. We are well past those first years of our relationship, where we took overnight Intercity buses between Wellington and Hamilton to visit each other in the summer. Sometimes this year, the overnight bus is inevitable, or at least very cost prohibitive to avoid. We slept surprisingly well by both our standards (which means I slept pretty solidly from 11:30 pm all the way through till 6am, and Jerry dozed for maybe 4 hours all up. He does not sleep well outside of a regular bed).
There was a moment when we were stopped by the police, and they started unloading stuff from under the bus… It looked like our bags were still in there, so we minded our own business. Sure enough, when we arrived at the Denizli bus station, my bag popped out quickly. Jerry’s bag soon followed…absolutely soaking wet. Thankfully, our electronics were all up in our day bags, and Jerry even brought his medications with him onto the bus. Our kind accommodation host’s name translates to King Star, which is a cool name, and what he wanted us to call him. Our last name being Go did not impress him, as it is not as cool as King Star! He lent us his own washing machine to wash the sopping wet clothes, and Jerry got to work on his bag with the hairdryer.
King Star’s kindness continued, taking us up the hill to his mum’s place, where we got to see Hierapolis from above, amongst their family’s olive groves. He also took us to a nearby town, with more thermal terraces. These are less famous, thanks to being smaller and brown in colour, but they were hot, free, and local. We wandered the local bazaar, trying delicious pomegranate juice and buying heaps of cherries. We went to his family restaurant, and the chef invited me into the kitchen to help with making the pide.
I had a personal pide making class, and was from then on invited to stay in Pamukkale, become King Star’s wife, and work in the restaurant. Jerry was informed that he could continue travelling on his own. A very tempting offer, but I was eventually won over by all the travel adventures we are yet to have…As a compromise, he has informed Jerry and I that we can return, but only if we have kids and bring them with us. Seems fair!
We were in Pamukkale longer than the average tourist. Since the travertines and Hierapolis can be explored all in one day, people often arrive in the morning, and leave that afternoon. We made the most of an affordable studio apartment; cooking meals at home, and watching hot air balloons fly overhead out the window (Pamukkale also has a hot air balloon scene, albeit smaller).
Yesterday, we explored the travertines. Some have been drained, to combat a mosquito issue. To that, we say fair call! No one wants to live in a mosquito infested town. The white of the rock was so stark, it was almost blinding in the peak of the day.
We loved exploring through the Hierapolis ruins as well, although we did get a bit silly in the museum…
Now we are on the train to Selçuk, home to another ancient city - Ephesus. Matthew Reilly’s Seven Ancient Wonders series was an absolute favourite of all the McElligott family, and it prepared me well for this part of our trip. I am so excited to wander the ruins I have read about. After that, we head to the coast, ready for boats, islands, and Greece. The Mamma Mia playlist is queued.
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