Joe's World Backpacking Trip Stories and pics from my travels.

I stayed in a village called Goreme in Cappodocia.  It had a population of about a thousand, and the surrounding villages had about the same.  The area of Cappodocia is known for really cool rock formations and underground tunnels and buildings carved into rock.  My favorite part was the villages though.  They were small, some people still lived in caves cut into the rock.  They reminded me of the villages I've seen in the Balkans.  Small, poor, and very third world.  I slept in a hostel that was a cave carved out of one of the rock spires in the area.  The landscape was nice, with a lot of Byzantine history, people carved cities underground to protect themselves from persecution because they were Christian.  It was freakin cold though.  Negative 5 or 6 centigrade, so cold that the moisture in the air froze, and there was this thick fog every day until about noon when the sun was at it's highest.  I got lucky by meeting a Greek named Yani who drove from Greece so he had his car with him.  I hitched a ride with him and drove all through Cappodocia, took in all the scenery in one day, it usually takes people 2-3.  Had a long journey getting to Cyprus.  I left at 0800 and got to Cyprus at about 0930 the next day.  I mixture of buses, minibuses and one very long ferry.  Now I'm in Kyrenia, Cyprus couchsurfing.  Nice place, he even has a washer and everything.  Fancy.