Yesterday we fınıshed our tıme ın Central Turkey wıth a day long tour of the Cappadoccia regıon. The morning featured a tour of an underground city used by ancient civilizations to escape enemy armies - This place was huge! We visted 8 of the 14 floors and observed one ventilation shaft that made the depth of the city very apparent. Navigating the city was challenging at times as spiral stair cases shrunk over time to slow enemy attacks should they occur. At many points we were nearly on our knees to avoid bumping our heads. Its amazing to think that ~2000 people would live in this underground city for as much as a month at a time. Because its made of volcanic rock, it was able to stay warm in the winter and cool in the summer. The city included everything - schools, wineries, churches, morges, and stables - WILD! We then did a 4km hike through a gorge. The view was cool and it was a very pretty setting as we walked beside the river the entire time. After a decent lunch we visited "pigeon valley" which was yet another cool view of the area. Check out the picture attached. 
The town is to the left, and the typical volcanic ash formations are to the right.
The town is to the left, and the typical volcanic ash formations are to the right. The town was a cool place to stay a few nights. You can check out our hotel which was carved out of the rock in the pics (behind Jess). Our room was really neat and had a cool atmosphere (Pic below). The view from our doorstep is behind steve.
After dinner and some Baklava and Rice Pudding in Goreme, we went to bed early as we were up at 6:00am for our busy day of travel. After an uneventful flight west to the Coast, we had our first difficulty obtaining transportation from the Airport in Izmir to Selcuk. After becoming very frustrated with taxi drivers who spoke poor english and kept quoting us 90 turkish lira for the trip, an "abandoned" train station, terrible directions, and still worse english, we made our way BACK into the airport, THROUGH security to finally receive the help of a very kind man with good english. After spending over an hour of frustration in the airport, we got the directions we needed and were on our way! We paid 10TRY each for a 5 minute bus out of the airport, afterwhich we were dropped off on the side of the street. There was no bus stop, and no way to cross the busy thoroughfare between us and the location we "thought" was where we needed to pick up our next bus based on the mumblings of our current driver.After another 15 minutes of wandering with our heavy packs, we did finally discover a method to cross the road. At that time, we began walking aimlessly down the street amidst sporadic quarreling of course only to find, to our surprise, a van with a sign entitled "Selcuk" coming towards us. Steve flagged down this van only to find that it was 6TRY per person to Selcuk.??? Is this how transportation to locations over 1hr away is organized in Turkey!?!?!? We were the first on the bus, as we believe that we did not enter from a standard, unlabeled location. We then became educated as to the local's method of procuring transportation. Why book a ticket online when the driver's assistant opens the doors of the moving van and shouts out the door - Selcuk! Selcuk! Selcuk! To our amazement, NUMEROUS individuals responded to this call, and in no time flat the van was full. On our way to Selcuck we dropped people off on strange roads and picked up other people who looked lost, homeless hitchhikers. Also, we can't help to mention the service we received while in transit. For our 7TRY (5CAD) we received hand sanatizer which was given to everyone from a water bottle. After approximately 20 minutes of our very long 1hr journey, water was distributed by the driver's assistant in a similar fashion to that of an airline stewardess. Jessie asked for a Wine Spritzer, however we were informed that they were currently out of stock. At the end of the day, we had a very interesting, incredibly frustrating however thankfully safe trip to our destination.
Our hostel tonight is clean and basic, but we are happy with it. The owner's nephew, like all of the hostel workers we've met, are amazingly helpful, friendly, and generous. We feel very at home.
Tomorrow we have a day long tour involving two 3 hour bus rides to Pammukale . We're exicted to swim in the limestone pools! We'll put some pics on facebook tomorrow night if we have a chance!
Love to everyone, hope you're well, bye for now!
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