Cappadocia

Saturday morning was time for us to say goodbye to Istanbul. 

We had our usual breakfast in the basement of the hotel. People came and went during our tenure there, but one couple and their infant baby girl had been there the whole time we were there. They were Russians. Bryan and I only saw them at breakfast, but Mark had the pleasure of seeing, well, hearing them more often as their rooms were adjoining. The baby girl was constantly cranky and crying and making noise and Mark had the pleasure of participating in this young girl’s first trip abroad. At breakfast time the child was usually calm. The mother was another story. She usually showed up to breakfast wearing lovely clothes and when she smiled, which was not very often, she looked beautiful. Most of the time, however, she looked cranky, demanding, and irritated. Her husband always showed up in his ordinary street clothes looking like he was on vacation. She would bark some orders and he would comply. It was a perfect symbiotic relationship, the kind you would find between a crocodile and a duck.

Our shuttle driver showed up early and of we wound around through the bustling traffic. We arrived at the airport early, checked in for the flight, and then retreated to the executive lounge awaiting our flight to Cappadocia.

The Cappadocian Region is located in the center of the Anatolian Region of Turkey. It is famous for its valleys, canyons, hills, and unusual rock formation created as a result of the eroding rains and winds over thousands of years. More importantly, it is known for its troglodyte dwellings carved out of the rock and entire cities dug out

underground. Originally created by volcanic activity, flood waters and strong winds eroded the geological formations and created bizarre shapes called Fairy Chimneys. There are mushroom shapes, pinnacle, capped, and conical formations. The origin of the region's name comes from the old Persian word Katpatuka, which allegedly means "the land of beautiful horses". The cave dwellings and underground cities are attributed to the Hittites as early as 2000 B.C. and much later served as a shelter for the early Christians escaping persecution.

Our plane landed and we disembarked into the middle of the desert. There was no visible town, just a few buildings or homes scattered on the hillside. We boarded a shuttle and made the nearly one-hour trip to our hotel, the Double Tree Avanos Cappadocia.