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Saturday, November 16th - Goreme/Zelve
The Dutch boys and I are riding up to the Zelve Valley to see the Open Air Museum. Yesterday's tour of the underground city of Derinkuyu was expensive but it required signing onto a tour to get in. The Open Air Museum is closer and has a large area to explore. We aren't required to be part of a tour so we are taking our bikes up there. It's a short 2 km ride.
The air is cool and the low morning light has a golden hue as we make our way north along the broad valley floor. We arrive and lock our bikes together to a fence near the admissions kiosk. Four buses and several smaller vans that have brought loads of tourists here are parked in the parking lot. The grounds inside are crawling with tourists who need the reassurance of an admission fee and an entrance gate to know they are seeing something worthy, the type I would never see walking the hills around Goreme.
Behind the kiosk there is a metal stairway that leads up to a cave entrance. The rock wall above is honeycombed with square windows up its side, which indicates there are many levels carved inside. There are larger cones nearby that are also honeycombed. Some have deteriorated over time, the outer walls now gone leaving layers of balconies instead of rooms with windows.
The "fairy chimneys" are everywhere on the hillsides around us and much larger than the ones beside Goreme. Some are like tall mushrooms and others look like pear-shaped sugar bowls. The doors on the bottom and little windows up the sides make them look like they belong in a cartoon or an amusement park. 
Definitely the most amazing features at this site are the churches that have been carved inside the hills. One of them has elaborate carving outside on the face of the cliff, which must be from some period when there was no need to hide the existence of the church anymore. Small churches, begun in secret, were often expanded later. Some of them are quite massive, with high, vaulted ceilings elaborately painted. The most amazing ones I see are the Elmali (apple) Kilise (rock-cut church) and the Tokali Kilise. The 10th century Tokali Kilise is the largest but I enjoy the paintings in the Elmali Kilise the most.
There are many other features around the area, including smaller, three-level underground settlements, but Coen and Vincent have had enough of the tourists and children. We climb on our bikes and continue north a few kilometres to Monks Valley (Pasabag), where there is a large stand of fairy chimneys that look like large, faceless figure wrapped in overcoats and wearing pointed brown hats.
Further north in the Zelve Valley, there is another open air museum. A forest of smaller cones, perhaps 15 m high, has so many caves it looks it could collapse in the next earthquake. It is a ghost town now, with many fewer tourists. It had been occupied until the 50s until erosion made living here too dangerous. This area is more famous for its many walking trails. We don't walk very far though, so that we are never far from our bikes.
This is our day of Cappadocia cave and fair chimney overload. We have seen enough of the same types to last us a few years. I think Vincent and Coen have tired of them faster than I have. We have agreed to spend one final day here tomorrow before leaving for Kayseri and points east.
On our way south to Goreme, I ask them if they have read my article I wrote for their cycling club's newsletter. They are suddenly and awkwardly quiet. They have read it but they can't use it. I have to work the reason why out of them. They say the article cannot mention the bad things that happened to me along the way. They want a travel brochure account of sunsets and a paradise of fascinating attractions, free of sickness, bad weather, wars, visas hassles or vicious guard dogs. I can redo it, I suggest, but real travel includes bad times and good times, like life itself. No, don't bother, Vincent tells me. He probably just wants to save me the bother of redoing it, but I can't stop myself from feeling a little hurt. PHOTO 1: north of Goreme
PHOTO 2: inside the entrance to the Open Air Museum
PHOTO 3: some of the cone settlements
PHOTO 4: fairy chimneys
PHOTO 5: like the little old lady who lived in a shoe?
PHOTO 6: the surrounding hillsides
PHOTO 7: Elmali Kilise ceiling painting
PHOTO 8: Tokali or Buckle Kilise
PHOTO 9: a hallway in Tokali Kilise
PHOTO 10: fairy chimneys near Zelve Valley
PHOTO 11: windows of several floors inside a cliff side
PHOTO 12: returning home
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