Ups and Downs

It was a dark, and stormy, Monday afternoon...

After two LONG years, this spring break saw me finally, FINALLY on the road again.  It would have been nice if I could have gone to Japan - had that trip I planned two and a half years ago, sitting on a beach in Toyama watching the firefly squid roll in - but that hope was in vain.  Instead, I finally caved and went with the suggestion Engrish tentatively made, back in January or so: we could always do Turkey.

Now, if you have been patiently waiting the last 11 months (haha) for me to write words*, you will no doubt be aware that I've done Turkey before.  Seven years ago, I led an intrepid band of my rag-tag students there.  Seven years before that, I led an intrepid band of my ragtag self there.  Maybe in another seven years I'll go back, and finally see Pamukkale (I've been kicking myself for not going there since 2008.  True story).  I had a blast both times, but I did basically the same thing both times...just with kids the second go-round.  This time, though, Engrish was my wing-girl, so futzing around in the city for a week would NOT do.

I believe it was she who first suggested Cappadocia...I'm pretty sure she described it as, "That place with the interesting rock formations."  Fortunately, I speak engrish, and I know enough about Turkey to guess, with pinpoint accuracy, what the hell she was talking about.  We booked our flights - I got us overnight bus tickets to Goreme, she found hotels - and two weeks back, we found ourselves under warm skies, looking at green grass, and breathing mask free.**

After an early check-in the clerk called "lucky" (because our room was, in fact, actually ready at 7:30 am), we walked down the street to what is apparently Goreme's only coffee shop that opens before 9 - King's Coffee.  The owner didn't seem too appalled that I ordered a coke to go with my "toast" (grilled cheese)...maybe that was because Engrish ordered a Turkish coffee like a decent human being.  On the other hand, considering the number of times Engrish was offered Nescafe, as though that was remotely related to actual coffee, maybe he's just been around enough tourists over the years to become jaded.  Who knows?

At any rate, my first order of business was to get to Urgup and enjoy an art lesson - ebru, Turkish marbling.  (Good to know that the pandemic didn't change everything, eh?)  I left Engrish to her own devices (which I had no doubt would involve hiking up the biggest cliff she could access) and caught a taxi to Kappadokya Ebru Sanat Evi (or Ebru Art House).  

I had a brief run-in with marbling when I brought the kids seven years ago, but I didn't get the chance to really indulge in it.  This time I wanted to be able to understand it, so that I'd be able to do it again once I was home.  The owner, Guler Somturk, and her daughter were really patient about answering all of my questions as well as guiding me to learn the basic forms.  We were having so much fun that I didn't even realize when my two hours were up.  The only shame is that I had to go so early that Engrish missed out on sampling at the winery across the street.

I returned to the hotel to find her sitting in the sun reading (for approximately the last time...unlike some people she didn't work her way through 200 chapters of a webnovel during the week).  After taking a shower we went out looking for something tasty.  After I'd abandoned her that morning, some weird old broad in the cafe had suggested a restaurant for us to try...however, after we took a look at their menu we decided trusting weird old broads that randomly start conversations with you in cafes was a bad idea.  We wandered around Goreme's main drag, finally getting reeled in by a big place called Kebapzade.  Where we might have gone a little overboard.  I mean, this was our first REAL meal in Turkey.  After getting to the bus stop the night before we had iskander kebap at a nearby mall, but that was all they had on the menu.  Here, we took one look at the menu and ended up ordering what felt like one of everything.  And maybe I was just starving by that point, but I still think their pottery kebab was my favorite of the whole trip, because it was so juicy and flavorful.  More on those later, though.

At that point, I could no longer put off the inevitable.  Although at that point I was ready to be rolled back up the hill to the hotel, I had promised Engrish hiking.  It could have been worse - as mentioned in the first line of this post, it was stormy, which seemed to concern some of the passersby, but Engrish was not to be deterred and I actually like the rain.  Worse come to worst, I would get soaked and have an excuse to spend the evening reading snuggled up in our cave.  My plan was to delay us tackling anything too strenuous by going to the Goreme Open Air Museum.  Along the way, though, we got distracted by something shiny - the famous "fairy chimneys" (aka, interesting rock formations).  

We actually intended to end up at the museum, really.  It's just...the trail that should have taken us there didn't.  Possibly because we willfully wandered off it in a different direction.  And by we, I totally take the blame for that, because my internal GPS kept telling me we were moving back in the direction of the town, rather than away from it.  But the scenery was pretty nice and the trail wasn't terribly steep, so all was good.

Or, rather, it was...and then it wasn't.  In a very short amount of time we found ourselves getting higher and higher on the ridge that my internal GPS kept telling me separated us from the town, and I let us keep going, because I knew that this would actually turn into a shortcut.  And it did.  However, I made Engrish go up the last, steepest bit to make sure before I climbed it.  The moral of the story is, if you don't want to pay to access Goreme's sunset point, there's a back way in, but be prepared to work for it!  

*Joke's on you - I've written lots of words.  I just haven't published any of them because they were fucking depressing.  Nobody really wants to read about my nerd cave, or my (futile) attempts to kick my ass into a slightly less round shape.

**Mostly...I was a lot more hesitant to burn mine than Engrish was, but even I didn't wear mine that much.