Cappadocia

There are many tourist towns in Cappadocia, I blindly selected Goreme.  Don't ask me how it is pronounced, because everyone I met pronounced it different. I must admit that much of this portion of the trip was "blindly selected" as I didn't have my usual bookstore resources and abundant travel guides to assistant me in my decisions.  All I knew was that people go to Cappadocia and I had 4 or 5 days on my own to do whatever I wanted with, so why not?   

So now that that is out of the way...

After Istanbul I headed to Cappadocia, which is in eastern Anatlolia and about a 12 hour bus ride from Istanbul.  Luckily the Turks know a thing or two about traveling by bus.  Unlike the nightmarish Chinatown buses that us lucky folk living along the eastern seaboard get to utilize, Turkish buses are comfortable, clean, and have actual attendants that bring you tea and snacks.  So while I originally blanched at the thought of spending all night on a bus, alone and in a strange country, in the end I was thrilled with the experience.  Over the months I have cherished my somewhat frequent road trips and the time spent with my ipod.  This playlist took me back to the mid-2000s and included such hits as "international dateline," "finding out true love is blind," and "cloud."

Upon arrival in Cappadocia I found myself standing among about a half dozen other blurry-eyed travelers.  The dude at the info desk, conveniently located at the bus stop, kindly called each of our hotels to come fetch us.  I was eventually whisked away to my cave hotel where I was greeted by an extremely doting and friendly staff.  The nice American girl who was staffing the place directed me to the all the local sights and cafes.  After a shower and a nap I set off to a cafe followed by a journey to the "penis rocks."  Upon seeing a solo traveler the cafe staff joined me for lunch - it was me, Ali the owner, and a girl from Japan who came to Turkey and hadn't yet returned because she fell in love with Goreme.  We traded bits of our lunch along with our various travel stories. 

I took a detour from my appointment with the penis rocks and wandered around in the desert for a bit instead.  It looked a lot like southern Utah and blessedly felt just as dry.  I passed by a souvenir stand which had a few camels standing nearby.  I chuckled at first but when I circled back around on my way back to the hotel I spotted a baby camel.  This is where I got weak.  It was a baby camel!  Of course I needed a picture with it - I hadn't spotted the sign noting the cost for rides as well as pcitures.  No such thing as a free ride or a picture.  The situation snowballed after my cameo with the baby camel, suddenly a ladder was pulled out and I was ascending it with the intent to mount the big camel.  This is what happens to solo travelers, nobody is around to talk sense into them.  So there I was being paraded around the souvenir stand as the dimwitted tourist who just had to have the camel ride, which was just a big circle to the ice cream stand and back.  The  entrepreneur busily took several photos with my camera saying "Angelina Jolie" at every snap.  (No sir, I will not adopt your children and I will certainly not co-star in a movie with Nicolas Cage.)  After dismount they brought over the donkey.  Yeah, I really just wrote that.  So there I was riding the donkey.  Clearly they wanted to rack up quite the bill.  I just laughed and handed them what I thought was fair for making me laugh and went on my merry way.

I occupied my time in Goreme with hikes through the valleys, a Turkish bath, a day tour though southern Cappadocia with a bunch of happy couples, and of course drinking plenty of tea.

Pigeon Valley

Cave city/ monastery in southern Cappadocia

But the main thing I was pumped for was my sunrise balloon ride.  I was picked up from my hotel at 4:25am and taken to the balloon center which was brimming with people, seemingly from all over the world.  I was handed my safety instructions and told to wait until my pilot's name was called.  When they shouted out "Francesco" I and about a dozen Brazilians were loaded into a van.  We arrived at the sight as our balloon was being inflated.  A woman spotted me on my own and decided it was her duty to make sure that I got plenty of pictures of me floating up in the sky.  It was a fun group to be in the air with, especially as I can only understand one word of Portuguese, so I was basically alone with my own thoughts.  After little over an hour of dipping into valley's brushing the tops of trees, and floating high above the rocks we landed and toasted our journey with champagne.  Then it was time for me to go back to the hotel, eat breakfast with the two older couples staying at the hotel (who were thankfully NPR addicts like me) and take a nap.

Eventually the fun ended and it was time for me to head to Anakra where I would catch a flight back to Tbilisi.  Hands down, Goreme is the best place for a solo traveler.  I made plenty of friends and had many interesting conversations with strangers.  And now that I know a bit more, I will definitely return to Turkey and this time Izmir and Borum will be on the itinerary.