My "Saharagelber" 300TD

After our great breakfast at the pension, which was included we were about to explore the environment together. After my orientation yesterday I knew a bit already to start with today.

Based on tips in the Loneley planet and on the map we had received from our friendly pension owner we had quite a full program for today. We took more than one hundred pictures today, this illustrates how stunningly beautiful Cappadocia is, at least according to us. In fact one cannot describe it really, I’ll show pictures of it, they can illustrate Cappadocia way better then my words.
We planned to explore at least the various cave valleys, like the yellow, rose and the red valley and the cave houses. There was also a church with various images carved in the volcanic stone. We’ve put the Benz away and walked through this area for quite some time, enjoying it, we were alone all the time, I wonder how it is in the high season.

After our exploration in these valleys we went to an ancient city which was carved out of a very big rock. When we got there some guy started to talk to us and wanted to know if we would climb that rock and he offered to guide us. We didn’t, and we also didn’t want to buy his turtle carved out of stone, and went on, this guy following us. Melis wanted to stay down and relaxing on a terrace with a cup of coffee.
I ended up with this guide, climbing on the rock It was not an official guide, I know, but he was so persistent and I felt really sorry for him actually. Usually I’m quite difficult with this, persistent in saying that I don’t want it He told me there was much to see and I wouldn’t be able to find it all by myself.
“Yeah, right”. Disappointedly he walked back.
I walked upwards on the huge rock trying to check out the things to see myself. This fake guide, did tell us that the inhabitants left this city after an earthquake some 600 years ago. He also told me there were nice fresco’s to see in the church.
After I paid the city a visit and walked downwards to Melissa I met our friend again. He asked me if I saw everything and I had to admit thta I didn’t. Thus, we went up again.
He showed me indeed a lot more and couldn’t tell me very much, but he was able to show things I didn’t see. I ended up paying some Ytls and bought his turtle of stone too.
I felt sorry for this guy, that he had to to go through so much hassle, for just a few coins.

After all this, we continued the tour through the area. On our way we saw a turtle crossing the road, a tour bus coming from the other side had stopped and the tour operator was already busy to speed the turtle’s process to cross the road. After that we visited another small village, which also had an old part with houses carved out of rock, as a lot of villages have in Cappadocia. At the end of the day we went back to the valleys around Goreme and drove on a couple of dirt roads, twisted through the landscape of fairy chimneys.
This way we had to drive between the walls of the chimneys and it became smaller and smaller, and after a while we were driving with our wheels completely on the walls, it was exciting to do this, but sometimes a bit scary, then Melissa had to get out of the car and check the space between the car and the walls and see if everything worked out.
The path had become deep in the middle and the curves in it made it even more difficult. After investigating a very difficult part, measuring, considering, thinking, thinking again, I decided this was not save enough to do this, and go back. The problem was if I would give it a shot, I couldn’t go backwards because it was really small and there was a curve in it too. The Benz was too wide to go through this tiny part and I wouldn’t take the risk. I was able to turn around and we drove our same route back, without any problems.
After the sunset it was getting dark so we drove back to our cosy cave. It was a very special day today, lots of beautiful things we saw and the adventure of driving here. We didn’t have the time to go to the Ihlara valley anymore, it was too much. Tomorrow we are leaving again and drive to the East of Turkey.
This night we went out for dinner in a restaurant in Goreme. We had a very good vegetarian pizza and after that we talked with the waiter, who spoke very good english. We had a very good conversation about life and our home countries. It was a pleasant evening and a perfect seclusion of our time in Cappadocia.

Cappadocia

Valley, Goreme

Odd shapes again

View from a cave

Ancient carvings

Ancient city in the rocks

Strange shapes by erosion

Me, driving through Cappadocia

Another W123 T-modell, you don’t see the W123 in Turkey too often.

Urgup, Cappadocia

Heavy steering

More exciting steering

Ballooning in Cappadocia

When it’s getting late in the afternoon, the light becomes very colourful

Sunset

Sunset

Today we decided to rest a bit and do nothing. Melis liked to read today and I wanted to do some stuff to the car.

Having breakfast @ the Antalya Cave Pension

This was the right moment to investigate the Saharagelber, see if everything is all right. Everything was quite okay, hardly any oil usage, and all other fluids were okay. I also fixed the pot meter of the dashboard light, we didn’t have any when it was dark until now. I didn’t have time to fix this before departure so I did this today. I’ve brought a lot of tools with me and some small materials, so with that I was able to fix it. I’ve checked all the connections, tubes and lubrication points. I’ve replaced one fuse and until now nothing more happened since the 4600km we’ve driven. I also glued the Zebrano wood to the dash.
At the end of the afternoon I decided to drive around on my own, Melissa kept reading.
I was longing to drive around in the Saharagelber again So, I took my camera and drove around Goreme, stopped at every place where I wanted to take a picture.

Goreme overview

As a result, most of the time I was stopping, taking a picture, driving and stopping again, taking a picture, driving and so on. It’s great to drive around here, there are loads of small winding dirt roads which are a great to drive on, some are a bit difficult so I had a lot of fun today. The Benz is in its element here, it’s great to see with how much ease she is able do these things. Driving here is a real pleasure and you can get everywhere and stop at very nice spots, being alone nearly all the time. And everytime when I stopped and looked around, I was magicked by this stunning volcanic stone environment created by previous volcanic explosions, with all these strange caves and fairy chimneys, morphed by erosion. After sunset I went back to our cosy little cave where Melissa was (still ) reading

Volcanic environment

The ‘Chimney valley’

The W123 in the volcanic landscape of Cappadocia

Odd shaped, but recognizable…

The Saharagelber in the Goreme valley, the sun was setting, still shining a bit on the car and the trees around.

W123 Sunset

Driving in Cappadocia

Driving in Cappadocia

It was raining this morning. The village looked a bit sad in the rain. The underground city was 200m from our hotel and we walked a little bit through the Kaymakli village first. A bit disappointed, to see the countless stray dogs, which are fighting to stay alive. Lots of them badly hurt or infected, and today, we saw a badly injured dog again, Melis couldn’t get it from her mind. This is one of the bad things of travelling abroad, in most countries the animals have a bad life.
Anyway, we couldn’t help this individual, he was able to walk and we can’t give him a better life. We went to the underground city and decided to take a guide, we were very curious about the story behind these cities.
Some information extracted from a website:

Archaeological evidence shows that Cappadocia was inhabited as early as the Paleolithic period (c. 2.5 million BCE to 10,000 BCE), and continued to serve as home to the peoples of many different civilizations, including the Hittites, Greeks, and the Romans. Dwellings were dug into the rocks and provided shelter from the environment, defense against foreign invasions, and refuge from religious persecution. These dwellings interconnect, forming some two hundred to three hundred underground cities, equipped with elaborate air ventilation systems, water storage units, and in some cases, even stables and wineries. One of the most famous and well excavated is Kaymakli, where Christians hid from the pagan Roman invaders during the seventh century.

source: http://www.bookrags.com/history/worldhistory/cappadocia-ema-01/

This was really fascinating, from the Kaymakli ancient city 3 etages were open to the public, and there were five in total. Our small guide ran through the small passages and told us that these people used to to that too to move very fast and able to block passages with big rolling stones. He showed us wineries, kitchens, bathrooms, living rooms (for the regular and the richer families), meeting rooms, etc. Really impressive.

Inside the underground city of Kaymakli	Corridor

A family house
Kaymakli

After we investigated the city we walked back to the Saharagelber. It was still raining and we decided to drive to Goreme, from this base we would explore Cappadocia. Since it was raining we would then find a cosy place were we could do some reading or something.
We drove through this beautiful area and it all was a very nice atmosphere after all, a bit of rain, driving through this weird quiet area and listening to good music. Near Goreme we began to see the fairy chimneys, the weather had cleared up a bit and the rain had stopped.
We were stunned by the view of these chimney-like caves. This area really looks awesome! It is so weird, so beautiful, like another planet. We found a nice room in the Anatolya Cave Pension, it was a room in the cave we took, and we both said to ourselves, that this room was one of the cooles we ever had on our travels. You can see ‘our’ cave on this picture here (on the left): anatoliacave.com/resimler/029.jpg.

If you tend to stay in Goreme some time, really visit this pension, it’s such a nice place!
Very friendly people, and a beautiful pension, a place to be and a place to remember!
The room we had was as you can see in such a cave and is really, really cosy. We actually had two rooms, and a very luxe and clean bathroom, and it was definitely cheap too. The url is Anatoliacave.com After we installed ourselves in our new home, we sat down with the pension owner and his family and drank some turkish tea. He told us about what to see and where to go in Goreme. Mellissa and I both agreed that this must be paradise.

The Antalya Cave pension

Cave cooking

The rest of the day we hung around there and relaxed a bit and played with the dogs. There was a small dog, called Pascha which reminded us of one of our own dogs. At the end of the day I watched the sunset from a hill nearby, where some other backpackers were to be found too, I was surprised to meet my new friend Pascha there again The sunset with all these strange morphed caves and the sight of the colored mountain gives an extra dimension to the sunset, and on top of that, it all colors very beautiful. After that I walked back and saw a very cosy cafe-like place called The Flinstones. This was a very cosy place, also in a cave, I decided to ask Melissa to go there tonight, and we did. But first we Melis made our dinner in our tiny comfortable cave.
This was *the* place where fellow travellers were chatting with each other and sit and relax. A hearth in the middle kept the place warm. One of the visitors started playing music, vocals and guitar, this girl had a pretty voice and it was a pleasure to listen to. Oh what a night! Sometimes, when exploring the world, you come across a place which impress very much and has a very relaxed atmosphere, In my opinion, Goreme, Cappadocia ist just like that.
After a boatload of wine (for me though) it was time to go to bed. Still happy to be in Turkey, still amazed about the hospitality and the kindness of the turkish, and the beauty of Turkey itself.

Sunset in Goreme

Close to our pension, Goreme. The sun was setting and a lot of people were watching it., myself incluis

The travellers place to be: The Flintstones in Goreme

After a cold shower (yah, indeed). Yesterday it was indeed warm, as our turkish friend told us, but they have a watertank on the roof, and the sun warms it up during the day.
But in the morning the water has of course become stone-cold. But it’s okay, it’s all part of these kind of journeys. Just like this, just before we left Melis also broke a lath of the bed by just sitting on it. Yesterday evening I’d found out that one of the fuel tanks was leaking, when I was inspecting it today, I was inspecting the damage, it turned out that the complete roof was full of this vegetable oil, as was the cargo door. Furthermore, the rest of the car was full of tiny spots of oil. So, I planned to stop at a fountain along the route through the coast mountains. I had fixed the tank leak yesterday night with some glue and one screw, the glue had become hard, so that’s good. After we were offered a cup of coffee again, which was very kind, we departed to continue the coastal route for some time and then go up north to Cappadocia. After I found a fountain I stopped to clean the oil, while I was cleaning the car with shampoo the turkish family in their nice red W115 drove by and honked.

Our pension last night	The nice W115 of our hotel owner

After some time we stopped at a very nice spot with a beach in front of it and had a cup of coffee on a cosy beach terrace of the restaurant. There were hardly any people around here, and after we sat there for a while we decided to sit on the beach for a while. I also took a dive in the sea, which was a good refresh for it was very warm. We relaxed some more and then left again, in the direction of Cappadocia. We won’t see the sea for some time now.

We were quite late again, so we would arrive during the night.
Late in the evening we entered a small village (I guess it was Derinkuyu). We found one pension which appeared to be full, we didn’t get any offer to sleep somewhere else, so we continued our trip, the man of the pension told me ‘Kaymakli’ a couple of times, so there we were maybe able to find something (it was already nearly midnight). We managed to find something in Kaymakli indeed so we were lucky to find the door still open. This pension looked okay, if there’s a bed and water it’s okay already. We made it, it was already 00:30am, but managed to find a place to sleep.
After we walked the stairs we found two men in a room and we arranged a room. The turkish man spoke a bit english and we had a short chat about the ancient underground city we had to check out here in Kaymakli, he borrowed me a small book of Cappadocia and I read some of it in our room. First get a good deal of sleep and tomorrow we will check out the underground city. Melis cooked a nice meal again and we enjoyed it with some wine.
It’s getting exciting, tomorrow we will see what Cappadocia is like…

Always disappointing to see how all the garbage is thrown of the hill by the local people.

Garbage	More garbage