Day 196, Tuesday August 6, 2019
“It’s not like there’s a law against flying.”
“Yes, there is. The law of gravity.”
― Laini Taylor, Daughter of Smoke & Bone
Sites Covered in this Post
• Open Air Museum
• Avanos Pottery Studios
• Hot Air Balloons
Lesson Learned: If fear prevents you from traveling to foreign lands, beware of your own shadow. Ellen and I are not intrepid explorers, nor do we have handlers on the ground to take care of all our wants and needs the moment we clear customs. To date, we have been in Iceland, England, Greece, Egypt, Croatia, Germany, France, Ireland and Turkey. We’ve had no problems getting through customs, no issues with local transportation to our hotels, visiting historical sites has been easy, even when we don’t speak the language we’ve been able to get taxi drivers to get us to our destinations, we haven’t gotten any food or water-borne illnesses, and never have we been in fear for our safety.
Even on the night that our taxi dropped us a block away from our hotel in the middle of Zagreb at midnight, on a fog shrouded, dimly lit cobblestone boulevard, when we were the only people in sight I wasn’t worried. Just a little ticked that we seemed to have been stranded, until I figured out our hotel was half a block away on a street that was for pedestrians only.
We haven’t been a part of a tour group, taken a cruise, ridden a tour bus, or had an agency arrange our lodging and transport, even in Egypt, which is somewhat rare. There are always issues associated with travel, that’s just the way it is. Things such as delayed flights, crummy hotels, bad food, over-hyped attractions, no A/C, slimy cab drivers, putting up with other tourists from the tour buses, ticket mix-ups and the like are bound to happen. But, do you really want to prevent yourself from seeing the Pyramids, the Parthenon, Eiffel Tower, Globe Theater, Plitvice Lakes, King Tut, County Clare, the islands of Greece, Dubrovnik, Versailles, Buckingham Palace, or Cappidocia? Obviously, not us.
We’ve seen a lot of wonderful things in the U.S. in our past travels, but we wouldn’t pass up on the things we’ve seen internationally so far, for another shot at Yellowstone National Park. And we have much, much more to see before we let our kids pick our nursing home.
Still, even I get a little nervous when we touch down in a new country. I think it’s only natural, but so far, every insecurity I’ve fostered inside evaporates once the sun shines on the reality of the new destination. I believe that a little anxiety sharpens your senses, enriches the experiences you’ll have, and freshens the world, your perspective, and the scents of new places you smell.
Don’t worry so much. Nobody gives a damn where you are from. You may discover that people are pretty nice (even French waiters) if you give them a chance.
History as an Open Air Museum – Göreme
“Most of the other visitors were chained to their audio guides, looking only at what their little headsets told them was worth seeing.”
― Dara Horn, The World to Come
Our second day in Cappadocia started with disappointment, in that there was too much wind for the balloons to fly. So much for getting up at 5 AM and scanning the horizon for the tale tell signs of giant bags of nylon being inflated by gas furnaces better served in a crematorium. We never felt the breeze, as we perched on the rooftop of our hotel like a flock of Venice pigeons, but how could we know what it was like 500 feet above our heads. So, we settled for enjoying a magnificent sunrise in the cool, crisp, silent desert morning.
As rewarding as that was, we were again punished by the fact that breakfast wasn’t served at the hotel until 9 AM and we were out of coffee in the room. Other than the balloons, this town does not wake up early. Three hours of caffeine deprivation is not pleasant, especially with a cranky 18 month-old grandbaby who doesn’t comprehend the concept of patience. We made it through, had breakfast, and the first stop of the day was the Goreme Open-Air Museum.
The Goreme Open-Air Museum in many ways is like Old Cairo. It’s a vast ancient monastic complex composed of scores of refectory monasteries placed side-by-side, each with its own fantastic church in the middle of a Muslim country. Experts say it should be the first sight to be visited by any traveler in Cappadocia, so, of course, we put it off until the second day. It’s easy to locate, just walk down the main drag, up a slight incline (slight if you are a seasoned Tour de France mountain stage specialist) at the top of the hill standing in the center of the region with easy access from all directions.
It is only 15-minute walk (1.5km, 1 mile) from Goreme village center, so of course we drove. It contains an amazing collection of the rock-cut churches, with beautiful frescoes (which they won’t let you photograph) whose colors still retain all their original freshness, but unfortunately most have been defaced during the centuries after their creation. It also presents unique examples of rock-hewn architecture that’s incredible given that these structures were all excavated by hand, without aid of power equipment or even blasting powder. The Goreme Open Air Museum has been a member of UNESCO World Heritage List since 1984, and was one of the first two UNESCO sites in Turkey. We are always interested in adding another UNESCO site to our “Been There, Done That” list.
We have such luck. The next misfire of the day was being late to the museum. It opens at 9, but of course the hotel dining hall didn’t open until 9, so we were chowing down when the gates were opened. Skipping breakfast wasn’t an option, which you would obviously know if you’ve ever spent any time around a cranky toddler. So, we rolled into the museum parking lot at precisely 10:07 only to be greeted by 12 tour busses and at least 100 sedans. Even the lounging camels had this “Shit, look how crowded it is today!” look on their faces. At least we weren’t going to have to give fat tourist toadies piggy back rides like the dromedaries were. We were late.
The Goreme Open Air museum contains some of the earliest churches in history. This area was one of the first hotbeds of Christianity and when they crawled outside their holes the Cappadocians get a lot of credit or blame for spreading the Word throughout the rest of the world. Well, its true, some groups aren’t especially fond of Christians in general, and European Christians in particular (you can lump Americans in that pot as well). I think it might be that Crusades thing.
This whole area, according to UNESCO is “a spectacular landscape, entirely sculpted by erosion, the Göreme valley and its surroundings contain rock-hewn sanctuaries that provide unique evidence of Byzantine art in the post-Iconoclastic period. Dwellings, troglodyte villages and underground towns – the remains of a traditional human habitat dating back to the 4th century – can also be seen there.” The museum forms an early-man geographical repository reflecting the historical progression and community interaction of the faith in a harsh environment. There are eleven refectories within the Museum, with rock-cut churches tables, benches, and stairs…..lots of stairs. Each is associated with a church. Most of the churches in Goreme are from the 10th, 11th and 12th centuries.
I tried to look up more about the museum on Wikipedia, but in Turkey Wikipedia is censored. Its amazing what governments do to try to suppress free thought, open discussion and opposing opinions of the sitting democratically elected dictators.
Avanos Pottery Village
After our visit to the museum, we checked out of the hotel. We originally only planned on spending one night here, but there’s far too much to see in Cappadocia on such a short visit, so we moved over to the Design Cave Suites Hotel for an extra night (https://www.designcappadocia.com/explore )which is in a great location, with great rooms, a good breakfast, and a great platform to view the balloon launch, if it ever happens.
Ellen and I’ve been doing ceramics back home in Alexandria for years, so when we found out the community of Avanos is noted for its fine pottery and many, many artist studios we knew how we’d spend the afternoon. Avanos is well known for the red clay products made by local artists. Hundreds of the village men are skilled in making pots, plates, wine holders, ashtrays (I did this in the second grade) and chess sets. They are pottery masters and their skills have mostly been handed down from generation to generation. The roots of their profession lie in the nearby red river that flows through the town. The artists have complete vertical production control from digging out the raw clay, processing it, constituting the clay, throwing or hand building the objects, glazing, firing, and finally selling their ware.
The Kizilirmak (Red River) is named after the red clay that lies on its banks. Avanos craftsmen have been taking the clay from the river beds since the Hittite period, using it to make household products. Skilled potters, using foot-driven wheels make pottery from scratch. He/she will take the clay and produce beautiful pieces for you within minutes. We’ve seen a lot of pottery and potters over the years, and these men are true craftsmen.
True to what the guide books say, the potters give a demonstration, and then its your turn. I wasn’t going to do it, but Ellen jumped right in and did a pretty good job, in spite of not sitting at a wheel for over 8 months. Well, pretty good until her apron got caught in the wheel and totally destroyed her bowl. It was good fun, anyway, and we bought a few nice pieces to bring home.
Balloons of Cappidocia
The origins of hot air balloons is very old. There are a lot of examples of ballooning, from China, to Leonardo Da Vinci, to 18th century France. Today, colorful hot air balloons are found around the world, especially around certain desert tourist locations like Luxor, Egypt; Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA; and, of course Cappadocia, Turkey. This adventure, which started with the Montgolfier brothers (France), continues today all over the world.
Cappadocia is considered the center of hot air balloon in Turkey. Cappadocia hosts thousands of local and foreign thrill-seeking tourists on short hops high into the sky at the break of dawn on mornings when the wind doesn’t threaten to whisk them off to Africa. Evidently, Cappadocia is the number one spot in the world with for touro-ballooning (I just made that word up) with 450 thousand tourists ballooning to date. And every day it increases this amount, well weather permitting.
Investments in the ballooning industry and marketing were made years ago to develop Cappadocia as the Asian leader in hot air ballooning. They set up ballooning flight schools, attracted active and more qualified personnel with the hopes of economic gain, and the Cappadocia Vocational School opened the Balloon Pilot Associate Degree Program in 2011-2012. Hey, lets go flying and make some dough at the same time. Blah, blah, blah, blah…important stuff, but boring. The important thing is they are taking care of the basics so you don’t go down in flames from 500 feel like a kamakazi pilot with a roman candle stuck up his ass.
On our last day, we got up at 5 AM, as you should if you want to see the balloons launch. Again, we were disappointed. It was like washing your car and buying a new shirt for a first date just to have her cancel an hour before the appointed hour. Bummer.
Given that it appeared to be another scratch, we went back to bed. It wasn’t until 6:30, when Mary was woken by the sound of blasting gas furnaces above her head that she realized that the balloons were in fact, flying. We were all roused out of bed, unceremoniously, to see the hundreds of balloons launching directly in front of the sun like a bunch of Messerschmidts diving down on a squadron of B-17s. Still, much like our experience in Luxor, it was fantastic. There is something eerily majestic about dozens of balloons silently gliding directly above your head. Only the occasional laugh of a passenger or the blast of gas flames makes any noise. I highly recommend it, we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. Ellen says I’m too wordy on this blog, so that’s it for now.
Amazing pics! Glad you got to see the grand baby. Miss you!