Life Less Ordinary: Day 6: In Transit to the Land of the Fairy Chimneys

We arrive in Konya at something like 6am. Through several conversations in broken English/hand-gesturing we manage to figure out how to get a cab to the Konya airport. It's a beautiful, cool morning. The sun has just risen. Everything is so peaceful. Once we get to the teeny-tiny Konya airport, we hop out and attempt to make our way inside. Someone outside asks us where we are flying to. We try to explain that we are simply here to rent a car. But, of course he has no idea what we are saying despite our emphatic reenactments of driving a car. We clearly were never meant to be mimes. I'm okay with that.

We manage to get in and get through security though they are all oddly angry with us for, apparently not speaking English. Perhaps they thought we were going to act as squaters in the airport (no one seemed to understand why we didn't have plane tickets). We sit for 3 hours, until 9am rolls around, when we are scheduled to pick up our car. Now that was a fiasco. The Budget car rental agent didn't speak much English so his buddy from one of the other car rental kiosks came over and managed to assist with the transaction/arrangement. It was an ordeal to say the least, but Christine somehow managed to walk away with a kiss on her hand. I don't know.

We get in the car which ended up being a manual (this was not specified, luckily I knew how to drive a stick-shift). Christine had not brought her driver's license so I was the DD for our trip to Goreme.

Of course the hostel we are going to is unfindable by the oober-trustworthy GPS. I love technology. And apparently since technology is so blasted fantastic, they don't make quality maps anymore. We drive around Nevsehir (the city next to Goreme) trying to find a map that will get us to Goreme. We stop and I buy the poorest excuse for a road map I have ever seen....somehow we manage to get back to the interstate and to Goreme (I honestly couldn't tell you how that wondrous feat was achieved).

Goreme is a city located in the region of Turkey called "Cappadoccia". Cappadoccia is, hands down, one of THE most INCREDIBLE places I have ever visited. As we drove in, this is what we began to see:

We arrive to our hostel around 2 in the afternoon or so. It's AWESOME!! I wish we had taken a picture of the outside. Many of the hotels and hostels are essentially caves built into the rock formations/rock mountains. Here is the inside of our hostel room (we had the whole room to ourselves!):

The proprietor was such a nice man who ran it with his wife and son (about 12 years old). The son brought us coffee and the proprietor (whose name now escapes me) gave us some maps and advised us on what to do since we had such a short time there (literally the rest of that day, which I regret still!!) We quickly showered and went out to find some lunch.

Then, as suggested by our hostel owner, we went to the open air museum. The open air museum was a collection of cave houses/buildings in a single area. This area also contained 12 churches. It was where St. Basil lived and taught, as did many others who came to stay and learn about the bible/Christianity. The inside of the caves were very simplistic, mainly just with carefully shaped mounds to make a dining table, etc.

After we visited the open air museum, we hiked to the top of one of the rock-mountain formations for some spectacular views!

And then wandered over to Love Valley where we walked/hiked/tumbled/laughed/awed over the fairy chimneys. It is said that the inhabitants of the area used to worship these formations, believing them to be the homes to fairies.