Under the Cappadocian Sun

So, we're here at our third stop in Turkey and about to leave sometime today for Georgia! But before we return to the land of impossibly slow internet, let me give you another small taste of Turkey.

When we arrived early in the morning after a hellish night slow-cooking on a night bus with a teething baby, we were pleasantly welcomed to Goreme and the amazing hot air balloons rising above the city.

They lift off every morning around 7 AM and even from the comfort of our hotel restaurant we could hear their massive blow torches filling their balloons from above.

It truly is a magical thing to see about 20 hot air balloons take off in the morning sun.

And while Cappadocia is certainly a hot air ballooning destination, it's most famous for the beautiful cave cities.

Jeremy and I had a very interesting couple of afternoons exploring different valleys FOR FREE and popping in and out of different cave churches and abandoned homes.

The amazing Turkish sun illuminated the entire valley and all the caves so that everything shined like polished gold.

It was by far one of the coolest things I've done and I got to do it with coolest person I know.

These interesting rock formations that look like towers are charmingly referred to in these parts as the Fairy Chimneys. I'm not sure why they're called that but it's cute none the less.

We did however give in to temptation and shelled out $15 to visit the Goreme Open Air Museum which is basically the same thing we saw in the valleys FOR FREE except with easier access and a few better preserved frescoes. Above is a photo of the most amazing frescoes in the last church at the Museum. If this church hadn't been included on the ticket (as some churches you had to pay extra for--museum pirates...), I would have said the $15 was wasted.

Oh yeah, while out in the valleys, we saw real ruined frescoes untouched for hundreds of years, dating back to the 1100's. I felt like I was Indiana Jone's side kick--his much more cautious side kick, might I add. Several times I had to plead with Jeremy to "not walk down that steep rock" or "please don't jump off that." I must have seemed like the ball and chain that annoying nags. lol. But good times all around.

Volcanic Spelunking

The next day we parked our stuff in Seogwipo and headed out for the Mungjang (?) Lava Tubes--a Natural World Heritage site. Pretty cool stuff. It was a long bus ride and a long walk there but so beautiful and soo worth it!

Let's go in!

Jeremy reading one of the boards inside the cave about how they were formed.

The lava tube floor was really uneven but obviously flattened out a bit for tourists. Comically, a few high-maintenance Korean women went through the cave in stilettos. lol.

Some of the interesting wall formations.

This was big part of the tube at the end where a hole in the ceiling created a lava pillar. These tubes are special because they were formed with two tubes--one on top of the other, a unique formation only found here.

After we emerged from the abyss, we sat at the bus stop for a good half hour or so on a deserted highway.

What to do, what to do...