Turkiye (pt 2)
Cappadocia
I consider myself a good driver, but man oh man would I be steamrolled on the streets of Turkiye. We get honked at and overtaken if we so much as slow down at a stop sign. Some highways are made of dirt. I do not often enjoy relinquishing control, but in this case, I am pleased to sit patiently in the backseat and stare out the window. For this drive in particular, I read for 5 hours straight. “The Goldfinch” by Donna Tartt is hypnotizing, check it out!
On our drive east, we made a pit-stop at these massive salt flats called Tuz Golu. Remember when I joked about walking on the moon? Well, today, I genuinely felt I did. It was magical. We caught the sunset here. I could’ve floated right up to heaven and not bat an eye. Reality check: breathing the air here stung like drinking the salt water in the sea. This is one of the largest hyper saline lakes in the world, and the salt flat is created because the water has no outlet to escape but for evaporation. Water flows in with minerals that dissolve and over thousands of years, water evaporates to leave a thick, crystallized layer of pure pink salt. Tuz Golu alone produces around 40% of Turkiye’s entire salt supply, both culinary and industrial. I cannot fathom the thought of feet walking all over my table salt, so I do not wish to look into salt flats in Canada. I haven’t heard of them there, so I find comfort in the hope that salt is harvested differently back home. Walking on other people’s salt doesn’t irk me as much.
Once in Cappadocia, we checked in to our hotel which is literally built into a cave. We got a free, traditional turkish breakfast here. Once again, so simple, fresh, and whole. Nobody told me there existed countries that eat blocks of cheese for breakfast?! I will indeed be taking this habit home. Dad, your feta supply is going to need to increase dramatically.
We explored the underground city of Derinkuyu, which is the largest excavated underground city in the world (that we know of)! Duh Duh Duh… It was actually discovered by some guy digging into his basement. At this rate, I’m beating my own record every day, because now THIS has become the oldest thing I’ve stepped foot in, coming in at around 3,000 years old. The city was 18-20 stories deep (85m underground), and spread out extensively. I did get very lost. It was a few hours of crouching and maneuvering through tiny arches and spiral staircases. I finally felt the benefits of being short. How anybody knew their way around that maze is more of a mystery to me than how they built it. We also explored the Zelve monastery, which is an ancient village carved into caves in this valley of unique rock formations. This was so insane to me. There were houses, churches, stables, wedding halls, wineries, and entire monastery villages carved into the rocks way high up on these cliffs of a valley. HOW? These were inhabited until 1952, until villagers relocated due to earth quake concerns again. 1952 is not nearly long ago enough for this to make sense to me. In an adjacent valley were these “fairy chimneys”, whimsically named after chimneys of fairy tale houses. Erosion knows what it’s doing in Turkey, that’s for sure.
Some of you will be proud, and some of you will be disappointed, to hear that I pulled a classic Peter Milne hike. I took my friends on a hike through a valley to see this huge cluster of phallic shaped rocks. This is an officially recognized similarity, not just my own immaturity. The hike was pretty difficult, and I managed to find the only trailhead to this valley that tourists hadn’t discovered yet. Watching the sunset over the penis rocks was worth it. We were all alone the entire time. Now, where I went wrong was (1) directions, (2) timing, and (3) expectation setting. We got lost, it got dark, and we were scared. There were no signs in this valley, only a confusing web of trails that traversed these massive rock crevasses. I thought they all met up eventually! In fact, I promised this. Oopsies! I’m just a small girl navigating a big valley in Turkiye! We did make it out, but in the pitch black, and with significantly higher heart rates than we started with. What scared me most was that I got us into this mess, so surely if it came to it, I would be the first to be sacrificed out of spite. No, what truly scared me most was that I know nothing about Turkish wildlife. I didn’t know what roams this valley. I do now. Sheesh! Another win for blind travelling because had I known what could’ve eaten me in there, I would’ve been crapping my pants a looottt more than I already was. I love hiking though, and this gave me a thrill the other sights simply couldn’t compete with.
Last up: the hot air balloons. This was one of the prettiest sights I have ever seen in my life. I’m knocking it out of the park with finding weirdo trailheads to hike up alone. We walked up at 5:30am, and had an entire 360º view of the balloons taking off at sunrise all to ourselves. In the distance, we could see road pull overs cramped with crowds. I felt so lucky to have the solitude, tranquility, and beauty of our spot. This will be a moment I tell my grandkids about. As beautiful as it was, what I loved about this morning was its introspectiveness. I felt so small, the world felt so large and vast, and my brain started recognizing the beauty in other moments and aspects of life beyond hot air balloons. A lot of moments on this trip so far have felt like a similar mental oasis. This is not a calmness or optimism my brain often achieves, so I appreciated this reset all the more.
Bye Turkiye
This was a hefty post. We spent a long time in Turkiye, and had the added freedom of Marge the van so we got to experience a lot. I’m loving traveling so far. I’m so happy. I want to wander forever. Lucky for me, I believe wandering is a mindset and I plan on living adventurously and introspectively wherever I am.
It just so happens that where I am now… IS EGYPT! Talk soon,
Aleda
Photo album (for the sake of your convenience, not for the sake of my self-advertising): https://www.icloud.com/sharedalbum/#B245nhQSTHoJMzW
