July 11- 21 Cappadocia

This place is so bizzare! 

Cappadocia is the name of this peculiar region full of fairy chimneys and other gelogical wonders. The four main towns here are Ürgüp, Avanos, Göreme and Uçhisar. I am sure you are eager to check out the view so I will shut up an let the pictures do the talking.

Göreme

A farmer's lunch room

Love Valley 

Cutest little fairy chimney house. The room below would be perfect for camping or as a summer cabin.

Inside one of the many pigeon roost caves.

One of the many vineyards among these strange rock formations.

Üç Hacli Church along the Güllüdere1 trail on Rose Valley

We missed a turn off and got a bit lost among all these canyons

The famous Cappadocia balloons early in the morning.

Haçli Church on Güllüdere1 trail

This was my favorite church. It was massive and all carved out of the rock. Kolonlu Church on Güllüdere2 trail in Rose Valley

Kolonlu church

Beautiful art in the Üzümlü (grape) Church on Güllüdere1-2 trail

A handy buggy with apricot trees and vineyard in the background.

A tight tunnel

Hiking with bikes is a real adventure.

Current Use

Eventhough most carved out fairy chimneys are sitting empty, some are still inhabited, used as sheds, animal shelters or hay barns.

Inhabited cave dwelling

Basement of historic church being used as for hay storage

Horse barn

Beautiful Turkish Carpets in Göreme

My favorite design

 

Illegal photo taken in Topkali Church just outside the Göreme Open Air Museum

So cute!

Cave room wall up close

July 11 - Mike and Heather

From last night's gas station it was a short ride to our house sitting place. Our hosts had left on their trip two days ago but an Australian cycling couple was waiting for us at the apartment. Mike and Heather are a real inspiration. They are both retired and if  I remember correctly, Heather got her first new bike when she was fifty. Now they are riding from Australia through China, Central Asia and Europe to England to visit relatives. They are traveling with a few more comforts than we are, the occasional hotel, sometimes a train through the very boring desert parts of Kazakhstan, but still. I am so impressed! Any of you out there who think you are too old for adventure, let these two travelers reignite your wild side and dig out some of those long abandoned dreams.

• HEATHER AND MIKE, HAVE A WONDERFUL REST OF YOUR JOURNEY THROUGH EUROPE. IT WAS SO GREAT TO MEET YOU! STAY SAFE AND DRY AND PERHAPS OUR PATHS WILL CROSS AGAIN SOMEDAY.

July 10- More Kervansarays...ancient ones and modern ones

More beautiful rolling hills and grain fields but constant head wind. Very tiring. Since we were following one of the main routes of the silk road we came past three more Kervansarays. One called Tepesidelikhan had been converted into a restaurant. We stopped there to have a look. The owner spoke good German and he allowed us to walk around in the gorgeously restored building and take photos. He also gave us a cup of coffee.
We were able to spend a few hours in the empty yurt next to the Kervansaray until the sun was less intense. Being at 1300m elevation, the air remained very pleasant even at midday.
THANK YOU CUMA FOR THE NICE PLACE TO SIT!
Here is the website of this restaurant if you are interested.
Www.oresinhan.com

Below is another Kervansaray. This one was closed but was just newly renovated.

In the evening we rode almost all the way to Acigöl where we finally stopped at a gas station to make some dinner. The kind attendant invited us to sleep in the unfinished back room of the gas station.
THANK YOU FOR THE GOOD SLEEPING SPOT.

July 9- Combine Escort on the Silk Road

Unfortunately we had to leave our kind host's place when he was still asleep so we did not get to see him again.
THANKS MUSTAFA FOR HOSTING US SO SHE SHORT NOTTICE. IT WAS GREAT TO MEET YOU AND GOOD LUCK WITH THE PLAY.
The route to Sultanhani was relatively flat with a few long drawn hills. The road surface varied from worn out and bumpy to brand new race track smooth. At this early hour there was already a strong and consistent head wind. Grrr.
Just outside of Konya two combines were coming up behind us on the highway. Here in Turkey, combines travel all over the country following their various harvest contracts. James got all excited because when you tuck in right behind the combine, its draft allows you to easily keep up the 25- 30km per hour travel speed. Ready here they come!
It was great. As long as the road surface is good, you can cruise along with little effort, no head wind, just the occasional bit of straw in your face. In the distance we saw a small hill coming up. The only way to keep up with the combine when going uphill is to literally hold on to it and have it drag you up. James who had done this several times advised me to practice holding on before the hill because keeping your balance is a bit tricky in the beginning, especially once your bike's weight is hanging on your arm when going up the hill. This was great advice because I certainly would have lost my balance on the hill otherwise. After a few hundred meters I felt pretty steady though...and here comes the hill with three more after it. Was it ever cool to zoom up them at 30km/hr. We got a few honks and smirks from passing drivers. At one point the road surface got quite rough so we had to slow down but we caught up with the combines a little while later while they were taking a break at a gas station. Thanks to these combines we covered the 100km to Sultanhani in just about three hours.
The big attraction there is one of the best preserved Kervansarays. A Kervansaray is a massive structure resembling a fort and historic times they were where silk road caravans used to shelter. They are basically antique gas stations.
Our host, Ferit, for that night came to meet us infront of the Kervansaray. He showed us his shoe repair and sewing shop and then brought us to his nice, shaded garden where we got to spend the hot afternoon. He was very nice, spoke good English and French and told us about his work as a tour guide for French groups for a few weeks in the summer.
Today was the first day of Ramadan so by the afternoon you could see a lot of hungry and thirsty faces around. In the early evening, the market and the bakery got really busy because everybody was out shopping for the big feast after sundown tonight.

When we returned to Ferit's house after a little exploration ride through town, his wife, daughter and daughter-in-law were busy prepping for dinner. We were invited to join them for the meal. Everybody was served delicious smelling chorba (soup) to start. As soon as the long awaited call rang over from the mosque it was time to eat. It was delicious. Beans, yufka etc.

THANK YOU FERIT, SELVER, AHMET, ADEVIYE AND SÜMEYRA FOR ACCEPTING US INTO YOUR FAMILY FOR AN EVENING. IT WAS GREAT TO MEET YOU ALL.

July 6-8- Konya

On the way into Konya we stopped at a bulgur production plant. Since we eat this stuff almost every day we were curious to get some first hand insight into how it is made. (Bulgur is parboiled and polished wheat. Available coarse to fine). The pictures don't show much of the actual process but if you are interested in learning more about this subject, Google would be more than happy to assist you.

We actually did not get to see much of Konya in these days. We were staying with another Warmshowers contact 20km outside of town and we were too lazy to ride to town and back (we just wanted to rest, riding in hot weather is worse than climbing a mountain pass every day), too cheap to pay for public transit, and James had picked up a minor bug somewhere and just wasn't feeling 100%. So I am sure we were the most boring guests this guy has ever hosted because we just sat in our room for most of the time we were there. Our host was actually away until the last day of our stay and the fact that his not overly sociable Dad, who lived with his son as a "guest", occupied the small living room (which served as his bedroom) most of the time made for a very awkward situation. Needless to say we did not feel comfortable and just wanted to leave. We though of just packing our stuff and heading off to Cappadocia when we received a message from our contacts there that their plans had changed and that they will be away for the next ten days thus wont be able to host us unless we delay our arrival. You could almost hear our already low mood barometer plummet at that moment. Shoot. What to do? We REALLY wanted to visit Cappadocia for a few days and exlore the interesting landscape but without a safe place to leave our stuff it would be pointless. We cannot take our loaded bikes hiking and a hotel room in this touristy place is way beyond our budget. Our only option was to delay our arrival in Cappadocia until our contacts  return in 10 days. However, this would mean coming up with a lengthy alternate route to Cappadocia since we were already less than three days away. We were frustrated and our discomfort and sense of being unwelcome at our current location only added to the stress. On top of that our host's dad informed us that more Couchsurfers will be arriving the day before we had originally planned to leave so we had to get out of the house. In a way we were relieved to get to go earlier and not appear rude but where to go? None of the other Warmshowers contacts in the area had replied to our messages.

So we just asked God to untangle this situation and show us what to do and where to go. Although we we still felt tense we were curious about how this would play out. As we have experienced many times, the Lord sometimes puts us in messy situations like this just to then solve them in a most unexpected, creative way that leaves us baffled and in awe of His superiority over any situation.

On July 8th we had to get out to make room for the next guests. Our host had returned late the night before so we got to meet him in the morning. He was actually quite nice, appologized for his dad's behaviour and said it is okay for us to hang out here for the day since the other guests would not arrive till the evening. Great, this would give us some more time with internet access so hopefully we will get a reply from some of the other requests we sent. And yes, a young cyclist and music student who lived just a short walk away from where we were staying replied that we are welcome to come stay with him tonight and the following night if we want. Yay, thank you Lord for arranging tonight's accomodation! By now we had also mapped out a fairly interesting ten day detour to Cappadocia. The situation was improving rapidly :-) ....but that is just the warm up of what happened next. We received another message from our Cappadocian contacts and this time it sounded very different. They were still going on their trip as planned but needed someone to water their plants during their absence so they asked us to come a quickly a possible. Wow, what a turn of events! House sitting in Cappadocia! Having a nice apartment to ourselves, living like normal people for a few days with a kitchen, bathroom, shower, fridge etc. That is something to look forward to.
THANK YOU GOD FOR THIS MIRACLE! WHAT A TREAT!

July 5- (continued) ...and more fruit

On the other side of the pass we stopped at a gas station in Aksehir. The attendants' favorite drink was Coke so they freely shared a big bottle with us. We try to avoid overly sugary drinks but when offered like that we make an exception. Then they took us behind the gas station to show us the big orchard. We got to munch on apricots, nectarines, black mulberries and yellow cherries to our hearts content. Then the owner gave us a bag and said we should go and pick some fruit to take with us. Then they cut up a watermelon for everybody to snack on.
THANKS GUYS FOR THIS MOST REFRESHING AND NOURISHING BREAK.

Then we rode for another few hours and near sunset stopped at another Remoil gas station to make a quick bulgur-vegetable salad. This gas station was run by two very nice Kurdish guys, Salih and Umran. They made tea for us and when they saw we were making dinner brought us some yogurt and a bowl of olives to go with it.

THANK YOU SALIH AND UMRAN FOR YOUR KINDNESS. IT WAS SO NICE TO MEET YOU!

Our aim was to get as close to Konya as possible to minimize the length of tomorrow's ride. When it was almost dark we stopped at a large gas station near Ilgin to ask if we could put our tent anywhere. First we were served more tea (the 6th round today). As we sat there chatting with the guys and eating our leftover bulgur, Ali offered us some lentil soup. So yummy. We were getting really full at this point but Ibrahim who lives in the house next door said he was about to go home for dinner and asked if we wanted so turkey pilav. We politely declined but he must have misunderstood because a few minutes later someone placed a big platter of bulgur pilav infront of us with a quarter of a turkey on top. Ali explained that the turkey is from the farm out back. It was delicious but we soon had to stop as our bellies were about to burst. Ali said we should pack up the leftovers for tomorrow. Mmmm yummy!
When we inquired about a sleeping spot they offered us the little onsite mosque (many turkish gas stations have a small ajoining mosque). We prefered sleeping outdoors so we were shown to the patio roof of the bathroom building. Perfect. Wow what a day!

THANK YOU ALI, IBRAHIM AND STAFF FOR YOUR EXCEPTIONAL TRAVELERS HOSPITALITY!

I sometimes feel so indepted to all these generous people we have met. GOD PLEASE BLESS AND PROSPER EACH ONE OF THEM IN EVERY WAY FOR THEIR SELFLESSNESS AND GENEROSITY!