Part of the group went on the hot air balloon this morning. We opted to skip it partly because of the exorbitant price but mostly due to the fear of heights/ flying.

 

With the morning free, we took a walk by the hotel peripherals, surveying the snow clad playgrounds and frozen pool.

 

 

The ballooners came back looking sullen for the foggy weather caused their flight to be delayed and the views to be not as spectacular as promised. After the ballooners had a quick breakfast, we resumed our tour of Cappadocia.

 

The bronze clay landscape in Cappadocia is what I imagined Mars to be like.

 

Millions of years ago, eruptions of the volcanoes Mt. Erciyes and Mt. Hasan encrusted the region with a layer of soft rocks (called tuffs), which provided the matter for nature and mankind to weave their creative strokes.

 

While men hallowed out caves as houses and churches, nature sculpted these rocks into odd-shaped, unstable-equilibrium type towers called fairy chimneys.

 

And the day was spent exploring these masterpieces.

 

We disembarked from our "spacecraft" to explore the village of Çavuşin, which was abandoned several decades earlier due to falling rocks.

 

 

The village resembles a colossal insect nest with numerous small openings punctuating a brittle crust.

 

 

These openings expose spaces that were once the homes of the villagers, now littered with rubble and huge rocks.

 

 

We ascended a winding path to the top of the village. There were no barricades at the top so slipping would mean a 30m tumble down the cliffs.

 

 

But the view at the top makes the risky climb worth it.

 

 

A shopkeeper who volunteered to be our trekking guide then prodded us to reach the St. John the Baptist Church. But to get there, we needed to cross a narrow creaking bridge which appeared ready to give way any time.

 

 

Quick mental risk assessments were grim but our 'it's-now-or-never' spirits got better of us as we treaded across the bridge to see the cave church. The views, however, were less than impressive.

 

 

Our exploration of extraterrestrial lands brought us next to the valley of Paşabağ, which houses the finest collections of fairy chimneys.

 

 

Fairy chimneys are rock pinnacles capped with a dollop of harder rock which makes them appear like giant mushrooms.

 

They are formed when the soft tuft is blanketed by denser and harder rocks. Through erosion and weathering, the bottom stem is chipped away faster than the top cap, resulting in its unique morphology.

 

 

These supposedly rarer twin and triple capped chimneys can only be found at Paşabağ.

 

 

We stopped for lunch at the Altinocak cave restaurant. I made the wrong decision to opt for the fish meal and ended with the dish laced with treacherous bones. Other than the novelty of eating in a cave, the meal was pretty unimpressive.

 

 

After a cursory visit to the Blue Art Center which sells precious gem stones, we were on the road again travelling to a lookout point to get a vantage view of the pigeon valley.

 

But the extraterrestrial beings thwarted our plans, blanketing the area with thick fog.

 

 

Nevertheless, we managed to replenish our energy stores with Mado Turkish ice cream, which is made from a unique concoction of goats milk, crushed orchid roots (called salep) and mastic which gives it a chewy/ gummy texture.

 

Pistachio flavour!

 

Donning the red fez hat, the seller not only dishes out the tasty treat, but also entertains with his trickery.

 

 

Wielding a long metal scoop, he appears to exert sorcery-like control over the ice cream. From simple maneuvers of rotating the cone as you reach out to grab thin air, to whizzing the dollop off leaving you holding an empty cone, the showcase can be mind-blowing or frustrating to the buyer.

 

We continued our adventure at the Göreme Open Air Museum, inspecting cave after cave of medieval monasteries adorned with colourful frescos.

 

 

With the fog keeping out solar radiation, the temperatures dipped to an unbearable state that we sought refuge at the gift shop.

 

 

Taking a break from Martian environments, we visited a Turkish carpet showroom which was an eye opener in many ways.

 

 

First, we were first brought to a hall where local women sat at wooden looms arranged neatly along the perimeters.

 

Pulling and tugging at the taut silk threads with confident and deft strokes, and occasionally lifting their heads to glance at the patterns they are weaving, it was like watching an ensemble of skilful musicians immersed in the music-making process.

 

 

Using computer pixels as an analogy, the spokesperson introduced us to ‘knot count’ as an indicator of the quality of a carpet, with the finest of which are weaved entirely from finely spun silk and boasts figures of 28×28 knots/cm². These intricately woven carpets can take up to 18 months to make and command hundreds of thousands of dollars (US$).

 

We were also given a tour of the factory and shown the process of unravelling the silkworm cocoon.

 

 

Sitting through a showcase of their finest carpets, we were each offered a cup of Turkish coffee or apple tea served in equally exquisite cups.

 

 

I had the coffee and I loved it. It was like drinking ‘coffee dinosaur’ with every sip heavenly enriched with texture of finely ground coffee beans.

 

 

Although everyone in the group left without buying anything, the good people of the factory didn’t seem to mind. Sponsored by the government to preserve and promote the local craft, they were more keen on showcasing their wares than making the sale.

 

We adjourned to our hotel for a quick dinner before partying the night away to a Turkish dinner show at the Yasar Baba underground restaurant.

 

 

After a course of traditional Turkish fare, we were treated to a repertoire of cultural performances.

 

The show kicked off with a short 10min version of the sema, or better known as the ritual of the Whirling Dervishes.

 

Five men clad in long gowns started by pacing purposefully in a circular orbit, stopping periodically to bow to one another. Then one by one, they will twirl from a slow rotation, gaining speed to a whirling spectacle with their skirt fanning out to a cone.

 

 

The solemn display was followed by lively folk dances and a performance enacting the traditional marriage custom.

 

 

Then in the pitch darkness, a neon red capsule descends from the ceiling and like a butterfly emerging from its cocoon, a belly dancer skips out and start slithering to the Arabian music.

 

 

The audiences were roped into a mass dancing session to bring the show to a close.