Day 24 17 September 2010 Friday
This day was devoted to traveling to the Cappadocia region. We stopped tonight in a tiny village named Selime. It lies just on the edge of the region, famous for towns, even cities dating back to pre-ottoman times that were created by peoples carving out homes, shops, barns, churches, etc., out of the soft, volcanic ash which then hardened to become tuff.
Tomorrow we will walk the 16km, Ihlara Gorge.
Day 25 18 September 2010 Saturday
The Ihlara Gorge composed of tuff, protected by a top layer of granite, with the Melendiz Suyu steam flowing through it was a popular retreat location for Byzantine monks.
The gorge is dotted with intricately carved churches.
The insides of the churches were covered in plaster and then thoroughly painted with frescos.
Many of the frescos have been defaced (literally) and have sustained considerable random vandalism over the past thousand years.
The Ihlara gorge, cutting through the arid Anatolian hills, provides a place for local villagers to grow fruits and vegetables all summer long.
We met several of the villagers along the path as well as their cute donkeys.
In Belisirma these local ladies were making their traditional pancakes (gozemele?), which is like a very thin large glutinous tortilla.
This day allowed us to get away from the mass tourist areas in the south and observe a bit of local life.
We finished the day near our pension climbing around the Selime Monastery. A huge single complex that included a two story cathedral with galleries, a large kitchen, and many ancillary chambers. We also climbed
multiple hair raising sets of carved stairs before we stopped at a large chimney climb. This brought us to just below the hole with a masonry wall in the top left side of the hill.
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