Cappadocia

Cappadocia, is a semi-arid region in central Turkey that's renowned for its beauty.  Its uniqueness stems from vast fields of pumice-dominated volcanic deposits that cover tens of thousands of square kilometres and are up to 2 kilometres thick. This volcanism persisted here for around 50,000 years about 15 million years ago and resulted from the collision of the Eurasian, African and Arabian tectonic plates, crushing the Anatolian Plate. This collision is ongoing and Turkey remains tectonically active, with periodic earthquakes and eruptions.

This ash and pumice has been both compacted and eroded leaving spectacular and unusual geological features. The deposits vary in hardness, so that when eroded by the elements, harder caps may sit atop softer rocks that are thus compacted by the heavy cap and thus resist erosion, forming a column below.  Similar 'hoodoo' can be seen elsewhere in the world, for example in Utah in the US, but here they are the world's most numerous and the most unusual.

Our hotel room was carved out of the hillside and the restaurant and public areas above offered great views across the valley - complete with hot air balloons - sadly all booked out - no rising above it all for us.

Azure Cave Suites - Cappadocia

But we took a hotel sponsored guided tour in a small bus and the following day with a driver and encountered numerous other similar groups, each with a guide.  I was intrigued to hear the various guides' competing versions of how the valleys and the chimneys were formed. I've since discovered, thanks to Wikipedia, when it became available, that from time to time the area has been glaciated and a small glacier persists on one of the volcanoes in the area.  So no doubt both ice and melt water has been a contributor to both temporary lake formation and to the erosion in general. 

A valley lookout - but how was it formed?
No matter, as long as the evil eye doesn't get you

Ever since the Neolithic Period the soft rocks of Cappadocia have been dug into by humans. Sometime, during the past twenty thousand years, people were driven by: the need for shelter; changed environmental conditions; conflict; or religion to begin burrowing into the soft rock.

At one stage entire troglodyte communities seem to have evolved underground.  Then like hermit crabs, that inhabit convenient dwellings created by others, a succession of later communities occupied and further developed the early underground chambers. It seems that in more peaceful times the chambers nearer the surface were used for winemaking.

The tunnels would be OK if you were short. For us banged heads made them problematic
Bottom right is one of the wine making vats

In the bronze and early iron age (1200-600 BCE) Cappadocia had a dominant Zoroastrian community and was known for its many fire temples.  But in due course it was conquered by the Byzantine Christians (Eastern Romans) who are thought to have persecuted the older religion perhaps driving them underground.  Then, with the advance of Islam it was the Christians who went underground to shelter from Arab raiders.  During the Ottoman period the Christians settled-in for the long haul, setting up many churches and even a large convent in the cliff-sides.  Cave-houses of a more conventional, domestic kind, also became a norm where, with essentially modern iron tools, it's relatively easy to carve out a dwelling in the cliff-side or in a hoodoo. 

Remnants of Byzantine Christian occupation

In the 19th century the increasing exploitation of Armenian Christians as slaves became a matter international condemnation. Rather than grant the slaves their freedom Sultan Abdul Hamid II granted impunity to killing squads who went on a rampage eliminating the problem.   He met his demise in 1908 when the Young Turks overthrew the Sultanate and established a short lived parliamentary democracy.  This soon collapsed in upsurge in Turkish nationalism and populism leading to the virtual dictatorial rule of the 'Three Pashas'.  Anti-Christian sentiment was at the heart of this populism and in 1915 the State rounded up and murdered 1.5 million Armenian Christians - see our visit to the Genocide Museum.  Then in 1923 a Convention Concerning the Exchange of Greek and Turkish Populations was negotiated with Greece and 1.2 million Orthodox Christians were involuntarily rounded up and exchanged for around 400 thousand Greek Muslims. 

Hitler thought this was an excellent idea. He too had already expelled many German Jews, to Palestine and elsewhere in Europe, before invading Poland in consort with his mate Stalin. As he told his generals, the week before the invasion, don't hesitate to kill the (non-German speaking) Poles (now interpreted to mean Jews): 'Wer redet heute noch von der Vernichtung der Armenier?' (Who still speaks today about the annihilation of the Armenians?)

Needless to say, our guide did not tell us about this. He told us instead that the Christians had built the entire underground village to hide from the Romans.  But when questioned about how they had accomplished all this in so short a time he got confused over the dates*.  Obviously not a wine drinker, when showing us the fermentation basins, he explained that the cave-dwellers needed to make wine to keep warm.

He also asserted that the oil lamps they used employed a special oil that did not consume oxygen when burnt. To be fair, it's hard for these guides to fact check - they have no Wikipedia in Turkey - and goodness knows what they are taught in school.  Excessive popular access to actual facts might raise awkward questions in all sorts of areas - fake news abounds.

*State sanctioned persecution of Christians by the Romans lasted 65 years. It began with an edict by Trajan in 250 and ended with Constantine in 315, earlier persecutions were a result of campaigns against Jews in general, not just Christianised Jews, as an outcome of the Roman-Jewish wars.

A few in our group were sceptical but most were lapping it up, except when he peppered this commentary with obvious flights of fancy, involving ancient mobile phones and so on.  He reminded me of the scene in Slumdog Millionaire where Jamal, the eponymous slum-dog, becomes a self-appointed guide at the Taj Mahal, inventing hilarious nonsense for gullible tourists.

Today, as with Jews in Poland, there are few remaining Christians in Cappadocia.  Now the ruined Christian churches are preserved not as places of worship but as heritage sites to amuse tourists and in several places to provide exercise - due to the hiking, climbing and scrambling required to reach them.

This is known as Love Valley. I didn't have to ask why.

The young woman on the seat was not looking at me but at her partner beside me. I took them to be newly weds.  I'd waited for him to leave the seat to get a clear shot framed by the heart.  But after numerous poses, as he straddled the seat and she took the pictures, he jumped up and she sat down and took various poses. So I ran out of patience. They were determined to carefully incorporate elements of the scenery into their compositions - you get the idea - not vey Islamic!

Turkey is a big country and because of its remoteness we had flown to Cappadocia rather than drive (over 600k) there and then back (over 500k) to Antalya.