Kapadokya

Fairy chimneys or castles made from volcanic ash (some still inhabited by locals)

Underground city meeting room, 9 storeys below ground.

The monastery from below

Patient camel, waiting for a rider

The church inside the monastery

 May 2-

  The main draw here in Kapadokya, central Turkey, are the peribacalar  or fairy chimneys formed when erosion wiped out the lava covering the consolidated ash shaped like pinnacles . They can reach 40 meters and are often capped by a cap of harder rock. Adapted from the Lonely Planet :

A great number of Christian cave churches and underground cities were built in the 4th to 11th centuries (AD) when Christianity flourished in the area. The first church we visited was off a dirt road by itself (the others are in clusters). We were dismayed to see a ticket taker approaching us even for this little chapel. I hesitated to go in and I said something about all the entrance fees and how expensive they were. He nodded his head and said, "OK, two for one. Then you come have tea." So we paid one ticket and got to see Nazar Church, a 10th century sacred space cut out of the inside of one of the odd conical rock formations that "populate" this area (see pics). Adem (Adam), our ticket taker/guide, had to identify the biblical stories in the frescos for us.  Some damage on the frescos was due to the moisture of the cave, but the scratching out of the eyes of the figures was intentional, done by muslims who conquered the area. Protecting oneself against the evil eye was and still is paramount in Turkey, so one theory is that they scratched out the eyes to protect themselves from the evil eye. The other is that Islam does not permit any art with human figures. If they did it for that reason, then we just have to be grateful that they only removed the eyes from the frescos. Adem insisted we sit outside his office (which was dug out of another cave, of course) and drink tea. We enjoyed his company and his generosity.

 Yesterday we visited an underground city that had 9 levels!! These tunnels, stairs, stables, living rooms, bedrooms, and churches were dug out of the rock in the same way as the cave churches above ground - by hand. Whole towns would descend into the earth when marauders would come through. They had ventilation vents and wells because sometimes they would have to live down there for months. Nowadays the hordes are tourists and it was WAY too crowded at 65 meters below!! Security guards  directed the "traffic" in the low, narrow tunnels. I'm very proud that my claustrophobia did not kick in!

you will also see two pics here of the monastery we hiked up to. There were kitchens, refectories, chapels. It must have been amazing in its heyday and impregnable.

 Almost every hotel is built into a pinnacle or cliff. Just a few examples of hotel names: Flintstones Cave, Elif Star Caves, Village Cave House,Legend Cave Hotel, etc. Our room is 2/3rds cave, 1/3 stone wall (manmade but from the same stone). I now feel a lot closer to my prehistoric relatives!