Day 23 - Caves, caves and more caves!
There was no wind this morning - none at all 🎉🎉🎉. No headwind no tailwind just peace. Emma set off slightly earlier while I waited for the tent to dry a bit and I caught her after she stopped to examine some caves. We're in Cappadocia which is an area famed for it's underground cities, hewn directly from the cliffside, made thousands of years ago mostly for protection of the locals as the land has been invaded by one empire after another across history, and were heading towards a more famous one, but this was just a random place, mostly used by goats but still with 40m of tunnels and whole rooms. Strong start to the cave tourism day!
We continued on to the main event - one of the bigger underground cities at Tatlarin, but one which is much quieter than the big ones which charge an entrance fee and are apparently rammed. As we were filling up water in the "tourist town", someone came over bearing four massive flatbreads stuffed with cheese and vegetables! Shortly afterwards they invited us in to eat them and we met the whole extended family! We spent a really nice hour chatting and being shown around their courtyard (surprise cow and calf in one room!) while drinking bottomless tea. Everytime you finished they'd offer you another. These Turks really like their tea! We're going through the region it's grown in a few days too which will be cool to see.
They invited us to stay the night and we were sorely tempted, but as it was only 11am it felt a bit early to stop. We said our goodbyes, were handed two more flatbreads for the road, and headed up the hill to see the underground city.
Thank you very much everyone!
The underground city was deserted initially until a very chilled out caretaker came out to unlock the door for us. This was an old garrison town, all underground. There were two big churches with frescos still visible and of impressive height, tombs, a dungeon, dining rooms, a 100metre long tiny passage and the first ever underground toilets! Very cool, very not up to English health and safety standards with the free standing wobbly ladders and mandatory crossing of the "trap" in the floor (at least they'd cut steps in the rock to climb out if you fell the 4metres in). The passage was only just passable by us squatting and hugging our knees (perhaps 50cm tall) - I can't imagine digging it...or being Luke's height!
In stark contrast to our overpriced coffee in the tourist centre full of tat yesterday, after viewing the place we were instructed how to turn the lights off at the fuse box and then invited to have a coffee with the caretaker on his office balcony (of course also cut into the rock). Such the opposite experience as we looked out over the impressive view and five mosques for the town of maybe 500 people while chatting to him. He's got quite a good gig as not many people come so he can enjoy the sun, and was growing tomatoes around the entrance. He gave us a massive bag of homegrown cherry tomatoes for our way too!
He made us all laugh after this translation:
A quick bit of planning (and hotel booking) later and the day was at its absolute hottest for us to finish the "rest day" ride. The hotel is beautiful with a lovely terrace and the first shower in 5 days was mint! So clean! We're able to pay to use the washing machine too which will save us 2 hours of hand washing everything, time we need to save as it's a 5am start to see the hot air balloons launch tomorrow morning.
Food spend today: 27.91 euros