Pack Light

Crude columns poke out big and burly and phallic on the horizon. The rocks seduce us with details. Curtains flutter from windows. Birds disappear into pigeon holes. This is Love Valley, Cappadocia.

Our van roars up a steep incline leading to our hotel. It’s a scene right out of A Bug’s Life. From troglodytes to tourists, these dwellings survived the evolution of their inhabitants. Ancient pigeon holes, carved by early Cappadocians who used pigeon droppings to fertilize their crop, still dot the rocks. Inside our cave room, our eyes are drawn to the sky. The Cappadocian chimney is a hole carved out of the tufa ceiling – a soft volcanic rock. It originally served as a cooking vent, and now looks like a central mini skylight.

We explore Cappadocia independently. The landscape lends very well to imagining yourself at the moon landing, exploring the lunar surface. There’s something about Cappadocia that makes you want to get lost, caked in ancient (or extraterrestrial) dust, map in hand. Tackling this terrain takes courage. We rent a bike and brave Tour de France-worthy hills while dodging chickens crossing the road. There are clusters of underground cities here – Derinkuyu being the biggest – and hundreds of rock-cut churches and monasteries with 10th century frescoes.

In the crack of dawn, we are above all of these, watching the sun creep up on the alien-looking landscape below. The shadow of our hot-air balloon travels across a patchwork quilt of farm fields – mulberries, apricots, tomatoes, grapes, olives – crumbling ancient cave dwellings that looked as destructible as Swiss cheese and edible-looking tabletop mountains reminiscent of a mocha layered cake. Our balloon ride lasts an hour with our pilot often flying us close to hillsides, treetops and tall grasses.

While lunching on an abandoned terrace restaurant, we see a precarious-looking cliff, peopled. A young Turkish boy, whose father is a hotel owner, graciously leads us to a scary-looking hill, precarious stone steps and another dusty, rocky path. This is the best part of the trip. The wind washes over us as the view suddenly emerges, scrolling up like film credits, under dramatic dark clouds. A patch of rain falling far away eventually catches up to us and we rush down the hill and take shelter under the doorway of a small house cave. It seems most fitting that this previous sanctuary for cavemen and Christians, becomes the perfect getaway for the jaded tourist who has seen everything.