Turkey: Cappadocia And Pamukkale
by Myrna James
Turkey is enchanting. I stayed in Turkey for seven weeks, instead of the ten days I had expected. I swam in warm calcium-rich pools after climbing the snow-white cliffs of their origin, Pamukkale, which means "cotton castle." I stayed in a cave with a funky dusty chandelier in Cappadocia, surrounded on all sides by fantastic rock formations and abandoned caves for exploring. I slept for a week in a tree house, at the base of a hillside where eternal flames still come from the earth. In Turkey, you see the amazing juxtaposition of ancient civilizations providing the foundation for modern Turkey, at once western European and intoxicatingly Asian, with its exotic scents and sounds.
When in Turkey, you must dare to leave the coastline and the city for two natural wonders: Pamukkale's Hot Springs, and Cappadocia's mysterious "lunar" landscape and underground cities of caves. These two places are amazing geographical sites in quiet, remote places. People have gone in search of the healing powers of Pamukkale's mineral hot springs since Roman times. The strange lands of Cappadocia have attracted tourists only more recently. Both places have small towns nearby, where locals know each other and are still excited to meet backpackers, where I could walk the circumference of town in ten minutes. However, the exponential growth in tourism in recent years has affected these places in differing ways.
CAPPADOCIA REGION
The landscape here in the very center of this vast country is like nothing I have ever seen. The plateaus drop off into long valleys and hills, hiding small churches in caves of earth-toned frescoes, carved and painted by the Christian Crusaders as they traveled through this Muslim country telling about Jesus, converting many. The area is covered with the remains of three ancient volcanoes, soft, easily carved tufa. In some places, hard stones have been caught, halting the erosion of the tufa directly below it, resulting in a cone-shaped pillars, and the infamously phallic "fairy chimneys." Intricate caves are carved into the huge cones. This is the area where the Sand People scenes were filmed in Star Wars. I hiked among the many valleys and cliffs to explore the remote caves and trails for quite a few days, either hiking to the foot of the hills and up, taking a scooter, or hitchhiking with friends the few kilometers from Goreme.
People living here as much as 4,000 years ago carved caves further and further underground, "cities" in which to live when invaders attacked. They could live in these caves for up to six months, with livestock and all provisions. Derinkuyu, meaning "deep well," is the largest, going eight levels down. At Kaymakli, a small entrance leads you down four levels into a complex series of tunnels, small room after small room, with communal kitchens black from smoke, and troughs for feeding the animals. It is so intriguing to imagine living here for long periods of time.
Descendants of these people lived here until about the 1920's, when ethnic Greeks and other nationalities in Turkey were forced to leave and return to their ethnic nation-states, and ethnic Turks were forced to leave Greece. This happened because during WWI, the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire had joined forces with Germany, lost, and Turkey was then occupied. The Ottoman Empire was about to be divided up by the victorious Allies, when Greece attacked the vulnerable nation in 1919, hoping to create a new Greek empire. When this attack failed, ethnic Greeks were forced to leave Turkey.
This attack was the factor that caused an officer in the army, Mustafa Kemal, called Ataturk, to begin the revolution, creating the Republic that exists today, founded in 1923. Ataturk was responsible, in the following years, for the creation of a modern democratic Turkey: a constitution was adopted, polygamy was abolished, Islam was removed as the state religion, and the Arabic alphabet was replaced by one based on Latin, among other major reforms. During this year, the 75th Anniversary of the Republic, and any other year for that matter, one cannot go to Turkey without hearing about this national hero. In recent years, the power of Islam is rising again, creating a somewhat unstable atmosphere politically.
GOREME, HEADQUARTERS FOR CAPPADOCIA
This is the town in which to stay when visiting the region. Amazing valleys are walking distance, including the famed Open Air Museum of Christian Crusaders' churches. Backpackers are welcome; in fact, there are a few cafes catering to the crowd with The Simpson's and Friends tapes playing nightly at Pasha Bar, and Cafedocia providing internet access and movies, a model perhaps taken from the cafes on Khao San Road in Bangkok, which show movies non-stop to lure backpackers in for dinner.
I arrived in Goreme on the overnight bus from Olimpos, and was pleasantly surprised, even at 5:30 am, that no one was waiting to beg us to stay at their pension. We went into a small room at the otogar (bus station) where the walls were lined with promotional photos for pensions, all with the same information, and no prices listed. We found one that looked fine and was nearby, got directions, and headed sleepily to find a bed for a few hours. Then we moved into Panoramic Pension, where friends were staying and which was up on a hill and did justice to its name. Niamh, my hugely intelligent and fun-loving young Irish lass travel partner, and I enjoyed the ambiance and people so much (Ekrem, Ahmet and Makbule) that we stayed for 18 days in our cave room, complete with dusty chandelier and intimate conversation area!
Life in Goreme is casual, stress-free, neighborly and happening before your very eyes. There are some tourist cafes, gift and carpet shops, (see Mehmet at Sultan Carpets for a fair price and excellent quality, and no hard sell). But I also heard the daily clip-clop of horses pulling wagon-loads of potatoes and hay through town, with men in work clothes and women in traditional Muslim head scarves, and those baggy patterned pants they wear that look like skirts, yards and yards of material. Gatherings of men with weathered faces shuffle toward the mosque for prayers. Otherwise, the men are drinking chai (black tea) and playing tavla (backgammon) all day long in groups of three or four around the small square tables. The clicking and sliding sounds of dice being rolled constantly and pieces clacking the sides of the board at a rapid-fire pace, the moves automatically known by each player, will always remind me of Turkey.
The mosque's Call to Prayer is mystical, lyrical, in harmony with the calls of nearby mosques, echoing in the surrounding valleys. This sound, accompanying the daily tasks of the farmers and punctuating the tourists' lives as they hike in the valleys, negotiate for carpets, send e-mail, and watch movies, helps to maintain the spiritual nature of Cappadocia.
A spiritual journey is embarked upon when the traveller is ready and open, but some places on earth are thought to enhance the spiritual experience, such as Sedona, Arizona with its red cliffs, and the Mount Everest region of Nepal with its Buddist prayer flags in primary colors covering the highest mountainside on earth. In Goreme, I found similar qualities: the remoteness necessary to experience solitude, the sense of communion with nature. High atop the crest of the hills I felt nearer to the Gods, the Heavens. Something higher than myself pulled me out to the edge of a rock to meditate, to contemplate its presence:
The warmth of the sun here is as welcome as the cool breeze. With them as my only companions I could sit here on this jutted outcropping of rock for ages, observing the diverse rock formations, lush valleys and natural beauty on all sides of me. I am so high, on top of this ridge in Rose Valley, that I have a sweeping view of the unusual and extreme countryside, the famous "fairy chimneys" pointing up, punctuating the valley, causing my eyes to rest upon them before continuing on. Other ridges are in curves like soft ice cream with the top just licked up on both sides before it melts. The valley at the foot of these hills far below me is full of trees still so green, transluscent in the strong sun, although it's already October. Just as I have settled into my spot which shall be my home for the next few hours (travellers get good at making each new place feel like home) the haunting Call-to-Prayer echoes through the valley to reach my eager ears, from all sides. The Hodja's of each mosque in the area chant their mostly monotone calls, first one, then another answers and another and then from the valley they echo. This is the most exotic and spiritual sound in Turkey; the wonderful regularity of it is part of my life here now. I close my eyes to surrender to the call.
PAMUKKALE
Pamukkale is a natural hot springs of mineral waters; over the years, this hot springs has formed beautiful pools and cliffs, with the calcium from the water accumulating in tiers. These are called travertines, or "waterfalls of white stone." My travel mate Paul and I walked barefoot along the paths, climbing the ridges, glimpsing a panoramic view of Pamukkale village and the valley below. This climb is lovely after sunset, with the pools of liquid glowing with reflected moonlight and few people there then. It's surely the best hour to go.
You will see misleading promotional posters of these cliffs in most hotels and hostels in Kusadasi and Istanbul, with lots of relaxed people swimming and sunning themselves. This is even the impression given in the photo in the March 1997 Lonely Planet guidebook. Unfortunately, the tourism here has taken its toll; most of the water is being diverted to nicer hotels in the area so that many of the pools are dry, and swimming is no longer allowed on the white cliffs. In order to swim in the "healing waters", you must enter a hotel at the top of the cliffs during the day and pay what amounts to a night or two's accommodation on a backpacker budget, about $5. It was refreshing, floating above the ancient Roman columns in the barely-warm Perrier-esque bubbles, though I felt the minerals in my stinging eyes.
Normal life without tourism is difficult to see in Pamukkale. The only life we saw was associated with tourism: the bus ticket seller, the carpet shop, the restaurants, the pensions, the shops. We did not see much evidence of the agricultural products and religious life in our seven days there.
The contrast between here and Goreme is best demonstrated by describing my arrival in town on the bus. (Pamukkale is near Denizli, four hours inland from Kusadasi on the west coast, where ferries arrive from the Greek island of Samos.) My friend, Paul and I were not even off the bus, when we were accosted by about ten men and boys, all shouting at us. We needed a room, so we tried to decipher who to trust. We were separated by the mob, and I heard one boy of about fifteen years, say his hotel was a one-minute walk. That caught my attention, so I asked him the usual questions: How much? Private bath? Hot water? To this last question he responded, "I cannot tell you we have 24 hours hot water. Yes, sometimes we have hot water." I liked the honesty of this answer, asked him to wait, and found Paul, fifteen feet away, almost lost in another sea of dark masculine heads. A few times, the police appeared, and the men would scatter, backing off for just a few minutes. Paul was cornered by a slick man in a stiff white shirt and cool black sunglasses who kept saying "just looking" and was literally putting our bags in his trunk. I said, "If we don't like it, you must bring us back here." He agreed and so off we went in the car, leaving the boy waiting.
Our highest priority was to find a place nearby, and this place was fifteen minutes by car, so it was clearly too far. After taking a look, Paul was "good cop," as is his nature, and I stepped into the role of "bad cop," saying that it's too far, please take us back. The man started shouting, "You trouble!" and actually lunged at me! Paul came between us as I stood my ground and said, "No, you lied. Are you a liar? Or will you take us back?" In the end, they did, and we then walked with the boy to his family's hotel, which was nice and so inexpensive we stayed there all week! We liked the slow pace of life, we went up to the travertines twice, met nice people in the carpet shop and cafes, and were in no hurry to move on.
Tourism has been a fact of life in Pamukkale for many more years than in Goreme, and this is certainly part of the reason Goreme is more enchanting and less "touristic." (I realize the irony of being a traveller seeking places that have not been tainted by people like me.) A new international airport was to open in the fall of 1998, 55 kilometers west of Goreme. In typical Turkish fashion, it has yet to open as of March 1999, but this will surely bring more tourists and put this situation to the test. Tourism will literally explode in Cappadocia in the next few years.
Current word-of-mouth among travellers is to skip Pamukkale, in contrast to Goreme in Cappadocia, the hottest town and region for backpackers in Turkey, (with the possible exception of the tree houses in Olimpos but they are more of a backpackers' marketing gimmick than authentic Turkish culture). Ironically, Pamukkale has historically been the more spiritual place, a place with healing powers, but it is difficult to feel this now. I felt misled by all the photos that must have been taken twenty years ago, yet I believe Pamukkale is still beautiful and worth a few days, knowing what to expect.
Myrna left the professional world of national magazine ad sales in Chicago to travel around the world! She sought eternal truths and true beauty, and found them. She left in January 1998, going to Australia, New Zealand, around Asia (Japan, China) then to Thailand and Nepal. The rest of the year was in Europe, mostly Turkey. She returned in December, then left again for five more months to do Habitat for Humanity Global Village in New Zealand and Alaska in 1999. She now resides in Denver, Colorado, near her hometown of Hoxie, Kansas.
You can visit Myrna's web site at www.GoGlobalGirl.com, and email Myrna at mljames@attglobal.net
