Underground overground

In the good old days, the unbeatable Ottomans were beating on the doors of the beatable Byzantines with an evil glint in their eyes. The Byzantines, faced with a superior force were, following a the time honoured tradition of taking to the hills (at least if I got my history right).
However their method of taking to the hills was truly unique. They went under them. They carved cities on 8 or 9 levels right into the soft, volcanic stuff of the hills themselves. These cities were, so the theory goes, able to house and store supplies for thousands of people for months of siege.

I visited one such place, Kaymakli, today with a chance acquaintance, John the eccentric Englishman, who had been traveling in Turkey for the past three months. And of course there was my spirit guide, the cat that keeps popping up in the strangest placed - first Aya Sofya, now about four floors down into the heart of the earth.



It was all very Indiana-Jonesy and also a tight squeeze. The local people must have been either very very tiny, or else they all suffered from cronic back ache or the Quasimodo-syndrome. Anyway we kept hitting our heads against the ceilings of the corridors and in one instance when a corridor ended in a dead end, it was too narrow to turn around in, so we had to crawl out backwards and uphill on all fours. And it's not as easy as babies make it look! After all that effort and about two hours of searching we found no hidden treasure!

But of course the real treasure here in Cappadocia ain't hidden. It's right in the open - the great, incredibly beautiful rock formations.




They are wow, they are schwing, they are really something!






So for once I'll let the photos do the talking and go off to the Fat Boys bar to watch the Turkey-Portugal football match with the locals. Tuuuurkeeeeyyyy!