Since Mark and I had both been to Cappadoccia before and 'did' the tours, we wanted to enjoy the area on our own. Today we took the city bus to the town called Zelve. Well, it used to be a town, but in the 1950's, the government moved everyone out of their cave homes because the rocks were no longer stable. We decided to climb around these rocks and explore the homes.
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| Where to start? |
The rocks that were left by the volcanic eruptions are porous, which made them easy to carve out multi-story homes, churches with central columns, barns for the animals. It reminded me alot of Mesa Verde in Colorado as the Indians lived in similar way. We climbed, Mark pulled me up steep rocks and guided me - not a sure footed hiker like him - down equally steep and slippery paths. We climbed up interior stairways that had notches for your feet and carved holes to put your hands (all perfectly placed). We both decided that these people were short, at least shorter than me. I have a knot on my head from learning this lesson at many a doorway.
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| looking down one of the stairways |
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| Yes we hiked and climbed into these caves in Zelve |
We progressed from Zelve to the Fairy Chimneys, easy to hike about 1 km down the road. You can see why these are my favorites! People still live in these type of rocks, but where we hiked, the caves were empty.
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| Here are the lovely fairy chimneys - not the name i'd give them |
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| mark climbs up into fairy chimney |
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| more representative chimneys! |
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