Goreme

There's meant to be an accent on the o or the e or something, but I'll leave it to you're very adept imaginations.

We have been here for three days, counting the one of our arrival and are leaving for Istanbul tonight. One more overnight bus and then it's planes the rest of the way. Exciting!

5 days in Istanbul. A few more than I planned but really, I don't think I'm allowed to complain about being stuck in Istanbul for an extra day or so. I'm sure I'll be able to find something to do.

But first Goreme. Awesome. Hot in the day, cool at night, the air is soooo clean and there are a tonne of hiking trails all over the place. There are lots of rock faces to scale and places to get yourself stuck in...think about making a jump top get yourself unstuck, then thinking better and going back the way you came to find a better way down. I'm writing this so I must have made some correct decisions today.

This is also the area where there are a lot of underground cities. I've seen excerpts of these but all the full blown, hardcore underground places are a bit further afield and I haven't gotten to them as a result. There are lots of pigeon roosts however, all built ay up on the cliff faces where you can ojnly stare and wonder why. It turns out, like with most aspects of life, it's all about the shit. Collect the pigeon shit, fertilize your fields and have a party featuring lots and lots of fruit.

JOYS!

I scrambled into one today, not too shitty anymore...I think you need to leave some food there for them to come by, but really cool and there was an old ladder in there to boot, just abandoned kind of feel to the place.

The canyon I was venturing down today also had some tunnels, but I believe they were more water worn than anything else. The canyon is all overgrown and thorny ( I should have rolled down my pant legs...yeesh) and the best way to avoid this is to enter the tunnels/water channels that follow the valley's edge. Sometime this means crawling and scrambling but really I'm going to throw these pants out in a few days so whatever.

Good adventure today.

Yesterday I went up Pigeon Valley to the next little town over, saw what they were calling a 'castle' which is really just a high point that at one time had some tunnels running through it, but now is just a weathered chuink of rock. Then I went down Love Valley eating apricots off trees the whole way (if I'd known before hand I wouldn't have bought the dried ones). I should mention that the table from which I bought the dried apricots had four words, one atop the others. I don't remember all the details, just that line 2 said something about viagra and line 4 was a comment on aphrodisiac...so apparently dried apricots and peanuts are the key. I bought some peanuts cooked in honey and sesame seeds that tasted like a treat I was obsessed with in Vietnam. Nummmy num nums. Aphrodisiac or not, delicious.

Then as I mentioned...Love Valley. No particular reason for it to be called this except for all the penis looking rock formations. Pretty good impressions. I guess that's what constitutes love around here, tall vertical shafts reaching for the sky.

Lovely.

But as i said Goreme is super...the air is great and if I actually would WRITE SOMETHING it might be a place I could set up shop in for some serious pondering. As is I'd just be wasting my time because I haven't written anything. Blech.

Hrrrm, I think that's all. I'm writing this on the comp in the lobby of the Flintstone Hotel where we stayed. We checked out at 10 but they let you use all the services (shower, pool, comp etc) all day until your bus leaves. Very nice.

In return I left them some filthy sock I wore hiking today and likely an ASUS Campsm 2002 (2003?) tshirt...I might bring it with me but I brought clothes with me to toss so I should start tossing more.

See you in Istanbul!