As promised in my previous entry, my adventures continued around Cappadocia. The main touristic town in the area, Göreme, was invaded by hordes of hot-air balloon riding Asian tourists and there was little left of Turkey in the atmosphere... but once you start walking in any direction outside the urban areas, there is hardly anybody and the landscapes are just amazing.I teamed up with Tom, the German guy I met before in Olympos village, who decided to continue travelling in Cappadocia. We did not stay in the same hostel but hanged out together most of the time. We found out that we have the same ideas about outdoor fun and also the same pace when walking, taking pictures, etc.

However, right before he joined me, I visited Uchisar castle and village on my own. It is a fairly easy walk along the so-called Pigeon Valley, a couple of hours return trip, and the final climb to the castle allows for great views over the entire region. This shot is taken from the base of the fortification, where many cave dwellings were carved out of the rock and some of them are still in use.

The Red Valley has many hidden crypts and churches that one can explore on foot, many are signposted but others are very difficult to discover. And even when one finds the entrance to one of them, it is not so simple to see what is inside. As an example, check out the following crypt. Tom took the picture while I climbed the rock steps... inside the hole, there were a few old graves from Byzantine times.

I don't usually take pictures of myself during trips but I made a couple of exceptions here, mainly because I was hiking with a buddy who knew how to take them and also because the locations were really impressive. In the next shot, I'm standing on top of one of the fairy chimneys in Pasabagi... most people see them from below, where the tourist buses stop. When you arrive on foot from the nearby valleys, the difficult thing is to climb down!

The last place we saw in Cappadocia was the Love Valley. You don't need a great deal of imagination to understand why they named it like that... and by the way, I did not climb any of those. Sorry if you wanted kinky pictures of me, it was far too dangerous and I still may want to have a professional career at some point.

That was it. That was the end of the touristic part of Turkey.
I was dying to ride my bike into Eastern Turkey and start feeling I was getting away from Europe and European mass tourism. Next stop would be Sanliurfa, birthplace of prophet Abraham and one of the oldest settlements in the Middle East. But more importantly, baklava should be awesome there ;)