Leftover Turkey

You’re probably sick of Christmas leftovers by now but we have one more helping of Turkey for you. Our final destination in Turkey was the magical region of Cappadocia. A geological Disneyland, the landscape is characterized by multiple strange rock formations ranging in form from tall mushrooms, undulating ledges and some oversized anatomical “unmentionables”. Hundreds of these fairy chimneys, as they have been dubbed, have been tunnelled out over the years to be used as homes. It would seem however, that cave dwelling has fallen out of favour in recent times and now, most of the chimneys are vacant save for the occasional hotel and much to our delight a local police station.

Another one of Amir’s geocache adventures uncovered a vacant Flintstones style apartment complex.
The explorations continued below the surface when we visited one of the nearby underground cave cities. This particular city extended seven storeys below ground although visitors are only allowed to weave their way through the tiny tunnels as deep as five storeys, more than deep enough to exacerbate even a mild case of claustrophobia! Our hired tour guide “little Moustafa” was only about 5 feet tall and perfectly built given his occupation. “Little Moustafa” would go scuttling down the tiny passages at breakneck speed crouched over like a little hobbit. Meanwhile, we fumbled after him bumping our heads and cursing along the way trying not to lose sight of him for fear of being lost AND concussed in the underground labyrinth.
Ah yes, then there was “Turkish Nights” an evening of fake “authentic” Turkish ceremonies attended by busloads of other tourists. Seeing Adam and Amir get dragged up for bellydancing lessons was worth the price of admission. Alas, since both were forced to strip off their shirts, the video has been marked as "classified" and we are unable to publish it here.

We bid our temporary family goodbye and after a slight challenge attempting to find the airport, we headed for Frankfurt and then on to Australia.