Days 40-42: Living Flintstones Style

Everyone has adolescent fantasies. And no, you dirty-minded people, I'm not referring to the ones involving Princess Leia chained up in her slave outfit. I'm talking about the kinds where you imagine you're a Viking raider ravaging the coast of Northern Europe, or an astronaut exploring Alpha Centauri. Ok, so maybe I have an active imagination and never really grew up, but one of my minor fantasies was to live in a cave house. There's just something inexplicably appealing to me about a labyrinthine house carved out of a hillside, like a Hobbit hole in Bag End or Luke Skywalker's farm on Tattoine. And so it was with mild trepidation that I checked in to my honest-to-goodness cave hotel in the sleepy Cappadocia town of Urgup, ready to live out my little fantasy.

At first, I was a little disappointed with my room; it was fairly well apportioned and the walls were rock, but they were completely orthogonal. I'm not sure what I expected - this was a cave hotel but it was still modern so of course it would be carved out with precision. I guess my idea of a cave home was always with rough-hewn walls. Anyway, I decided to go out and explore and tried the door to my room. And tried it again. And again. What the? Was this a cave hotel or cave prison?! I fiddled with the door knob for another five minutes but just couldn't get the damn thing open! Since there was no phone in the room, I had exactly two options: 1) make a huge racket and wake up the entire hotel while simultaneously advertising my inability to open a simple unlocked door, or 2) simply give up and eventually die of exposure or starvation in my newfound cave tomb. Determined to keep my dignity rather than make a fool of myself and admit that I was a dumb American who couldn't operate a door, I resigned myself to a slow and painful death.

In those brief seconds after I made my decision, I became a Christian, Jew and Muslim all at once. I thought of all the friends I had made in my life. I thought of the loves I have had - never enough! I thought of the little children who would never be mine. And I cried. But even as I made peace with myself, an amazing thing happened. The hotel clerk must have been walking by and heard my frantic clawings against death's door, because he motioned me to pass him the key out the window so that he could open the door. After he freed me from my prison, he checked the door and confirmed that it was in fact broken and could not be opened from the inside, by someone of any intelligence. Phew! Absolved of my stupidity, I was able to sleep the good sleep... Flintstones style.

Cappadocia is famous for its dramatic mountainous geography, which was formed thousands of years ago by three volcanoes, each of which deposited a different type of lava on the landscape. The middle and largest layer is composed of tufa rock which has the interesting property of being very soft and easy to excavate. The result being that for thousands of years, the peoples of Cappadocia have carved cave houses out of the rock which were in use even up to the early 60's when the government made people evacuate. People didn't just live in cave houses, there were several entire underground cities which were used to hide in while under attack from enemies. Particularly interesting is the history of early Christians who lived in the cave houses and underground cities to evade persecution. There are dozens of cave churches all throughout Cappadocia. In many ways, Cappadocia was one of the "cradles" of Christianity, from which it weathered its painful early years and spread into Europe. Another interesting effect of the layered volcanic composition is that it creates dramatic landscapes. Tufa rock erodes easily by water and creates flowing mountainous forms. Harder basalt rock on top of softer tufa rock also creates famous "fairy chimneys" which look sort of like... well, I'll leave it to your adolescent fantasies.

On my last day in Cappadocia, I took my very first balloon ride. I'm sure a balloon ride is fun anywhere, but when it's over the rugged mountainous countryside of Cappadocia, it's nothing short of breathtaking. The pilot starts by taking you high up over the landscape for a birds-eye view, then drops you right into the valley where you skim over the fairy chimneys and cave houses. Our balloon actually scraped the leaves off a tree! For a finale, our pilot showed off his precision piloting skills by landing us directly onto the balloon-trailer of our waiting truck. Highly recommended.

On top of everything that Cappadocia has to offer, the people are fantastic! First of all, Turkish people are incredibly friendly to begin with, but the people of Cappadocia even more so. Second of all, my tour guide was fantastic. I recommend Agra Tours for their personalized touch and specifically, ask for Katri as your guide. Finally, Cappadocia is a bit more of a backpacker's destination and I met lots of cool people, including many solo travelers.