Cappadocia: Have you seen this landscape?

We hadn't seen this landscape in film or printed media, or even heard of this region until we researched it. By the time the four of us caught our first panoramic view, we all wondered why neither pictures nor even the region's name had ever reached us.

The geological wonders of the region owese to volcanoes, basalt, pumice, the Red River, and erosion. Clearly, we're not the first people to be fascinated by it - well over six-hundred first-millennium vave chirches are carved into the volcanic ash, as well as a handful of 100m-deep underground cities, connected by 4km tunnels.

As a bit of an appetizer for the rest ofo ur stay, we started off with a 6 AM balloon flight. An amazing trip - we're still not sure if it's more breathtaking from above or below, amidst the massive monoliths. (This sounds stupid without a visual reference, but we'll post it when we can.)

We're staying in a cave hotel near the small towns of Urgup and Goereme. We hired a private guide for two days - Uzay Taner served as our historical expert and entertainment/cuisine advisor. In addition to fulfilling his guide duties, he shed a lot of light on the confusions we encountered traveling in other (fundamentalist) Islamic nations.

Our first cave sight was a massive underground city carved over four millenniums ago. Initially, it was used as a refuge from invading Hittites, then as Hittite refuge from invading "Sea People", and so-forth for Persians, Greeks, Romans, and Christians. The maze of tunnels and living quarters were constructed with integrated water and ventolation shafts, spearholes, trap doors, and massive sliding-disc barricade doors. It was like Goonies, but real - and arguably, cooler.

We drove along the silk road to several cave monastaries and a caravan palace (when trekking from Amsterdam to Asia, they'd travel in large caravans for protection and duck into these palaces after sunset). Some of the cave paintings were surprisingly well-preserved.

We also visited several craft centers and witnessed the craft (and the purchase) of Turkish ceramics, carpets, and onyx.

We sealed our Cappadocia experience with an evening of whirling Dervishes, folk dancing, and disqutheque dancing. Our seats were from t row for the performance, so all four of us were "volunteered" during the show.

Amidst the reenactment of a traditional wedding ceremony, several gentlemen were chosen to compete in a dance, and Steve won hands-down with push-up claps and some sophisticated breakdancing. Shortly after, they paraded him around with another woman (it wasn't Anne), and we think Steve may in fact be a married man in the eyes of Turkish law.

The other three of us were pulled onstage for the belly-dancing portion. We three danced with the belly-dancer, and we earned some decent applause - anybody taht didn't clap probably thought we were professional dancers planted in the crowd.

Yeah, we're that good.