Love valley

Today I have been hikıng up and down Love valley next to Goreme - image above. What on earth can have induced people to name their valley that way?

Anyway the activity was suitable to the name as the only people I saw on my two hour hike there were a group of five very loud and merry men with a stallion and mare in heat... Love was in the air, horse love, with the men acting as the wedding party and Turkish music roaring from a car radio to set the romantic mood.

The rock formations in Love valley are amazing, hilarious, strangely powerful. They look exactly like... mushrooms. I have never ever seen a natural stone formation look so much like a... mushroom! Now if someone were to cut these babies loose and ship them to Korea. they would make a killing, as Koreans seem to have this thing about natural stones, which are shaped like... mushrooms. I think it has to do with strength, health, fertility or somethings.

The locals have diplomatically opted at calling these stone pinnacles fairy chimneys. And hewn directly into them are windows and doors leading to dwellings and, in many cases, churches.

At the Goreme outdoor museum I got to see some of the best preserved rock churches as they call churches hewn directly into the rocks and fairy chimneys. Amazing frescos in the few really well preserved churches! Most of the pictures have had the faces or at least the eyes of the saints and Christs scratched out by the Ottomans, since their faith forbid the painting of human figures. However luckily sometimes the Ottomans were too lazy to get on ladders and scratch out the ones on the ceilings so there is evidence left of how beautiful the Byzantine paintings were. The best preserved frescos are in the Dark Church (picture above) from around the 10th century. They cover the whole cave from floor to ceiling. And before you ask, of course the cat was there!

Anyway, I am now suitably sweaty and footsore for the forthcoming 8-hour night bus ride to Antakya. I haven't decided yet, whether I stop for a day of sightseeing in Antakya or push on through straight to Aleppo in Syria. If I get a visa at the border that is, as I should do as the native of a country that has no Syrian representation, embassy or such.

(I didn't catch the game yesterday after all. Turkey lost to Portugal 1-2. Today my landlord was extremely disappointed and hugely hung-over).