We woke up to the sound of balloons overhead — they're not silent, as you get the 'whoosh' of the flame jet as the pilot decides the balloon needs more lift. The wind direction had taken them right over our heads.
A bit later in the morning, we walked down the valley behind Kaya Camping towards Çavuşin and Çavuşin Church. We took a little side trip down a wrong path — interesting, as we found where some of the citrus fruit vendors in Göreme keep their stocks, in underground caverns. But we back-tracked, and met up with a walking tour group whose leader set us on the right path.
We were walking down the edge of the valley, towards Rose Valley — we had been advised not to take the 'low road', because last night's storm had left the bottom of the valley somewhat muddy.
Our path was looking more and more like a 'Garmin Path', as it was definitely petering out. At one point it was even blocked by an intentional barrier of thorny plants. Assuming this was to divert the ATV (quad-bikes) and horse traffic, we did the Turkish thing and ignored the traffic directions — we climbed over the barrier, and found ourselves on a path down to Rose Valley. At the foot of the hill was a cafe — they put cafes in the most unlikely places — so we had a cuppa before we continued on to the Joachim and Anna Church, one that has been carved out of one of the 'Fairy Chimneys'. We found it locked and, assuming that the other churches on our route would be similarly closed to the public, we decided to shorten our walk and strike out directly to Çavuşin Old Village.
A couple of kilometres of fascinating hiking brought us to the village. This is a 'ghost town' of cave dwellings, but because of this a lot of restaurants, hotels and souvenir shops have been set up around it.
We have found out why there are so many 'ghost towns' around Turkey. In 1923, as a result of the Turkish Independence Movement, the occupying powers decided that the best option for Turkey's future would be to move all ethnic Greeks from Turkey to Greece, and to move a large number of Muslims from Greece to Turkey. The justification for this was to prevent a possible 'ethnic cleansing' in the region, and it was done under the auspices of the Lausanne Convention. It was termed the "Population exchange between Greece and Turkey". Many of the relocations were done by force -- not a good solution, but possibly it averted a worse situation, as we have seen more recently in the break-up of Yugoslavia into a number of fragmented states, with warfare being the story in most cases — Bosnia, Kosovo, Serbia, the list goes on! The overall result for Turkey was that 1.5 million Greeks, mainly fairly well educated, were lost, and half a million Muslims with poor education took their place. But the Greeks were removed from whole Greek villages, which have not been resettled, and which comprise the numerous 'ghost towns' we see about the place.
We enjoyed sitting there, watching the quad bikes, the horses, and the hikers go past. Probably the way to explore Cappadocia best is on a quad bike or on horseback, but we were doing pretty well on shanks pony!
We explored Çavuşin Old Village, with its church and its mosque. It's amazing that the place was simply deserted in 1923 when the Greeks were removed!
At the end of Çavuşin Old Village is the Çavuşin Church, one of the better preserved and better decorated of the cave churches in the region. It dates back to 964-965 AD.
Just below Çavuşin Old Village is the new village of Çavuşin, which we wandered through and caught the bus round to the Zelve Archaeological Site. Here, in a group of three valleys, was a complex monastery, dug into the cliffs and 'fairy chimneys' like much else here in Cappadocia.
We explored Zelve for a while, then came out and dropped into one of the many cafes lurking outside waiting for the tourist trade. We sat there just enthralled by the antics of some children opposite. The youngest, a girl and obviously the leader when it comes to getting up to mischief, had found the water fountain and was having a wonderful time playing with the water. Then her older brother (apparently the birthday boy) came to join her, and started watering the plants nearby. Then her even older brother joined in, and they watered even further afield. Who needs to pay for entertainment?
We sat in the cafe until the bus came that would take us back to Kaya Camping. It was a small vehicle, and we had to virtually shoe-horn ourselves in. The bus then had to bypass people waiting at subsequent stops — but at least he phoned base to arrange for a backup bus to follow along to collect those he had been forced to pass by.
Back at Kaya Camping, we settled in for the night. Another storm came through, but with nowhere near the intensity of last night's!
Distance driven — today, nil; to date, 21,868 miles ( 35,194 km )
Lost the intelligent comment into the ether. So you'll have to have what's left. Looked a great day to me. Loved it. You both look fit and happy. Good to see. Like the kid shots and the rooster. Guess there's all sorts of ethnic cleansing. This may have been quite a good move for now, tho not at the time no doubt. All the best, Love Cathy PS you haven't found where they process their gorgeous dried apricots have you?
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