Blog #29.  July 4th

In the Caves of Cappadocia<br

Small town volcanic adventures

After 1 1/2 hour delay, in Ataturk Airport, my flight took off. In less than 3 hours, I landed at Kayseri Airport, a quiet small airfield in the midst of wide open spaces of Anatolia.  Looking around, the landscape was featureless, except for one huge snow capped cone shaped mountain in the distance, named Erciyes Mountain.  We sorted out our luggage and quickly found our driver, who was meeting several arriving travelers. As we drove towards Goreme, the open land resembled Oklahoma or Eastern Washington.  However, after 50 km, I began to see weird shapes and extremely rugged rocky cliffs, escarpments rising from the flat fertile soil below.  As I entered Goreme, I found myself in the middle of hundreds of sand colored pillar and peaked towering volcanic projections, pockmarked with cave openings.  Many of the hotels are built right into one of these ragged towers.  The old part of my hotel was built into such a cave, while the newer part was made of huge stones cut from the same volcanic material.  The stone had a faint earthy odor, and provided excellent insulation against heat or cold.  The inside of my room was half dome shaped, with one window facing the courtyard.  Once inside my room, there was a precious quiet, a profound relief after the cacophony of Istanbul.

Goreme is a tiny town with 1500 population during the winter.  A continuing influx of tourists has transformed an isolated, very self sufficient, agrarian culture, descended from the Hittites of ancient Anatolia into a community of innkeepers, restaurants, tour guides, and tourist shops.  The people were kind and hospitable, and very helpful with any questions or needs.  After I got settled in my room for a while, I ventured out to wander and to find a restaurant.  One of the innkeepers, Ahcan, directed me to Topdeck Restaurant, quite nearby, through some winding narrow alleyways.  I went down half a dozen large stone depths into a below ground cave, with a few tables and many sitting cushions beside low tables on the floor.  A handsome, courtly, silver haired father of the family was actively cooking in a white apron, while his daughter, perhaps 13 years old, slim and quick and smiling, danced and raced to serve the customers as fast as her father could cook. Her mother, a large plump lady transmitted the customer orders to her husband and collected the bill as guess departed.  The food was delicious (Nefess, in Turkish), and made from scratch with old Anatolian recipes.  The local red wine was very good and it was a pleasure to watch the warm and smiling family orchestrate their service.  Later, I looked on TripAdvisor and found them to be in the top 3 restaurants, with rating 9.3, among more than 60 restaurants in town.

The next day, I relaxed and worked on my blog, taking short walks through the town, photographing the many idiosyncratic hotels, homes, and unidentifiable caves at all levels in the surrounding forest of stone towers.  I meandered outside the town and following some of the nearby dirt roads, I discovered a old church carved into a cave, which was still in use as a chapel.  As I got further from town, I found more and more farmers with their families living in caves and storing food, firewood, building materials, and animals in a network of stone caverns.  Some were harvesting apricots, some cultivating garden vegetables, or tending grape vines low to the ground.  

The following day, I had scheduled one of two day tours of the area.  I was picked up outside my hotel, in a van along with 6-8 other people, at 9:00 AM. We toured the back streets of the town stopping at various fascinating hotels to pick up the rest of the tourists.  They were an interesting and enjoyable group, one woman from South Africa, two Australians, one Turk, a family of five Canadians, and me.  Our tour guide, named Selim, was a dark, very slim and wiry man with a ready smile and quick wit.  He loved what he was doing and taught us much more than standard tourist spiel.  He was very interested in spiritual life and history and was very responsive and knowledgable to my questions.  We first stopped at a lookout point over the vast expanse of rugged badlands.  He described the eruption of a large volcano two hundred million years ago that had buried the land in 50-100 feet of soft ash and pumice.  Millennia later, a harder  more erosion resistant stone had been laid down.  The wind, rain, rivers, and snows had easily eroded the soft compressed ash stone, leaving a harder stone capping the top of the stone pillar.  It is a similar geologic story as we have in Monument Valley, Arches, etc, in the USA, though the colors and shapes of the eroded stone are quite different and the stone much softer in Capadocia.  I learned from Selim that Cappadocia means "land of the beautiful horses", because wild herds of horses have roamed the valleys and escarpments for thousands of years, and a few still do. I also learned that Anatolia means "land of the mother", as many archaeological sites have found a multitude of small statues in the crude shape of a pregnant mother, a time when the culture and religion were animistic and matriarchal.  We stopped at specific points where unusual shapes of rock, "the virgin Mary" and a camel could be seen and photographed.  We wandered through a variety of caves and pigeon houses.

In the afternoon, we arrived at "the open air museum", near to Goreme.  Here, dozens of caves are still decorated with frescoes, carved religious images, and furnishings sculptured out of the rock. There are painted images, carvings, and decoration from many different cultures and religious traditions over the millennia.  A few place dimly showed worn carvings of stone age and bronze age inhabitants, 6000-3000 BC. There were Minoan, Dorian, Mycenean, , Hittite, and Greek figures and designs from 2500- 200BC.  From 100-250 AD, the most vivid and numerous were Christian images of all kinds, with Jesus Christ crowned, in Kingly poses (characteristic of the Eastern Orthodox tradition), the four gospel writers, images of Adam and Eve, Moses, and Elijah, and many others.  Early Christians hid from the Roman persecution, living for generations in these caves.  Then, in the fourth century, after the Christianization of Rome, large numbers of anchorite monks retreated to isolation and the desert for solitary prayer and meditation.  These monks have left some important mystical writings behind and we know them today as the "desert fathers and mothers" of the church.  The majority of their frescoes had been defaced by Seljuk and Ottoman Turkish Muslims when they invaded the area, spreading the word of Mohammed, in the 8th and 9th century.  Islamic decoration was/is geometric and mostly using a red iron based pigment, figures of humans or living creatures were forbidden by the Koran.  

Subsequently, with the rise of Byzantium, newer portraits of Saint Basil, one of the first priests to visit and establish a monastery in these wild, deserted spaces, are frequent.  Other icons and images from Byzantine tradition decorated rooms within the monastic settlements. Apparently, some of these were defaced by invading crusaders, from the Holy Roman Christian church who opposed the Byzantine Eastern Orthodox icons.  Some images survived behind plaster or were covered by soot from fire places and cooking rooms.  Storehouses, wine making apparatus, kitchens, dining areas, and prayer chapels are distinguishable.  Many of the prayer chambers are high up above the main rooms, tiny niches accessed through narrow vertical tunnels, with small foot and hand holding notches in the rock to allow an agile monk to ascend to his place of prayer and fasting.  It was fascinating to see how water was routed through the caves, and waste lowered in buckets by ropes to the ground outside the cave.  There were many more caves and rooms than we had time to see after 2 1/2 hours of climbing and scrambling in and out of caves, up and down worn steps, footholds crumbling underfoot.

I was full and felt a high by the end of the afternoon.  I loved it, so much to learn and remember, so many styles of art and carvings recognizable from the series of peoples and cultures that had swept through and inhabited this strange land.  My mind was full of imagining the lives of the early Christians, the desert fathers, and Byzantine monastic lives.  In this landscape, the geologic and human timelines are so evident, in truth it is an outdoor museum.

The next day, I took a break from the tours and wandered again on my own.  Late in the day, Bascan, the owner of the place wanted me to see some special cave areas and lookouts that were off the beaten track.  He loved visiting and showing these spots to interested guests at the hotel.  We walked a long way through dust and wind in the late afternoon, the sun casting long shadows in the network of towering stone caves and peaks.  We came to a large cave, carved perhaps within the last 300-400 years, with  lofty, high arched passageways and Byzantine crosses carved beautifully into the soft stone.  We wandered through the various rooms and speculated about their purpose.  This had clearly been a church and seemed to have been in use fairly recently.  I understood that we were on private land but we saw no one.  As it was getting dark, we were unable to visit the high lookout point.

On my third full day, I took another tour with Selim to the southern part of Cappadocia, to visit a huge underground city, the largest of the cave monasteries, and hike through a deep canyon carved by a river.  During these trips, Selim shared much of his knowledge and observations about Islam, Judaism, and Christianity.  Hearing the Koran stories of Mohammed and his life and the origins of specific Islamic customs such as five time a day prayer facing Mecca, alms giving, hospitality, and family structure gave me a warm and compassionate inside look at Selim's tradition.  He described the reasons for women to be covered with chadors and praying in a separate area of the mosques.  He said the Islamic practice of prayer and daily life is meant to support the Muslim's focus on Allah.  Having a woman bowing down to the ground, bottom elevated could be very distracting from focus on Allah, he said.  Likewise, their rule against alcohol was oriented toward preventing thoughts and actions from straying from Allah. Selim also loved Rumi and had read and followed some of the dervish practices for much of his adult life. At this same time, I was reading Rumi on my Kindle and we compared favorite passages, rejoicing in our shared love for the 13th century mystic lover who settled in Konya, Turkey, a half days drive from there.  He also knew and deeply respected the stories of Jesus (Isa in Turkish) as the greatest of prophet and teacher.  He understood that for Christians, Jesus is the Christ, the son of God, but for Muslims, this seems too much like more than One God.  Their central belief is in Al lah ("the One", in Arabic), and part of their call to prayer is "Allah, the merciful and compassionate, there is no God but Allah".

On this day, we climbed down hundreds of steps to the 26th of 28 levels of Derinkuyu, a huge underground city.  Such a vast complex, we only could visit perhaps a fourth of the  subterranean abode.  In many areas, we had to stoop down to 4 feet or so and squeeze through narrow openings to continue down or laterally to view rooms and ventilation tunnels, wells, and alternate escape routes.  The Hittites, in 14th century BC carved the upper 21 levels, when they were hiding from invading Persian armies.  There were ingenious ways they hid their cooking smoke and cooked mostly at night when their smoke could not be seen.  They also hid the vast amount of dirt that they carved out to make the city, in a riverbed over 6 miles away.  Similarly, they had elaborate means of concealing the waste that had to be hauled up through vertical passageways to the surface. There were also a number of boobymtraps, such as Indian Jones e countered, to stop invading armies who might access the caves.

In the 1st-3rd centuries, Christians fleeing from persecution hid here.  They dug 7 more levels, for total of 28 levels.  Estimates of the population of this city vary from 2000-3000 up to 40,000 people.  The 40,000 number is ridiculous, but it probable that up to a maximum of 4,000 people lived below ground at one time.  The Turkish government has done a good job of protecting these caves and mounted lights and hand held cable along the steep routes.  It was still a challenge for several of the more claustrophobic members of our tour group.  Visualize the network of levels and tunnels in an ant colony and you will have a good sense of this underground city.   

Next we travelled to the entrance to a deep gorge following a slow lovely river at the bottom of stone cliffs filled with caves, in some parts 600 feet from the bottom.  It was cool and green along the river, with trout jumping and a myriad of bird life.  We hiked about 4km and then had lunch at a restaurant way stop near the exit from the canyon.

We finished the wonderful day with a stop at the biggest of the stone cave monasteries, which, however, had much fewer frescoes and works of art.  It had been a very utilitarian training school for monks, with up to 2,000 monks living and training there at one time.  It was mountain goat territory, requiring some serious climbing and risk, in order to access the opening of the network of caves and tunnels.  It was not hard to distinguish the cooking area from the dining and wine making rooms.  A larger chapel led to the overhead hole for climbing up to the many, many, small prayer and fasting cells.  I did not attempt to enter any of these tiny cubicles in the rock, high up the cliff side, but could vividly imagine the hardship and ascetic life these monks embraced.

The following day, the fourth of July, I had splurged and reserved a balloon ride at dawn over the wild landscape.  Up at 4:00 AM, the van arrived at 4:45, made a few more stops at other hotels, and took about 9 of us to a central dispatch point where they had coffee and bread for snacks.  By 5:30, we were climbing into the basket of the balloon, already mostly inflated.  I was right next to the pilot who was opening and closing a valve that squirted a gas flame about 8 feet long up into the hollow of the balloon, slowly heating the air in the balloon until it was ready to rise.  There were numerous other balloons, pilots and baskets, filled with excited tourists, rising all over the flat takeoff area.  About 15 minutes before sunrise, we were gliding over the rough rock and tower strewn countryside only a few hundred feet above the ground.  The pilot was very experienced and kept us close to the ground, climbing just enough to clear trees and peaks of cliffs, by seeming 10-20 feet.  We watched the sun slowly color the cliffs and shed horizontal shadows, broken by multicolored clouds.  On and on we travelled for what seemed a long time, but perhaps a half hour.  Then, continuing to heat the air in the balloon with just enough fiery breath to keep it aloft, we circled back toward our takeoff site.  The pilot was concerned because he could feel some wind rising.  It seemed minimal, but we landed a bit early with a thump and sideways basket tumble, then came to rest upright, very smoothly.  However, the helpers had to grab the ropes and hang on, getting dragged a little, because of the breeze.  It was interesting to watch the safety process for disinflation the balloon and  loading it onto a truck flatbed before we were allowed to exit.  As we were closing down, we watched multiple other balloons coming in with more difficulty, some turning over the basket on its side, spilling people onto each other.  They had taught us a brace position for landing as part of the initial safety procedure.  We watched as two balloons hit the ground hard and then lept up again, dragging their baskets over the edge of the flat space, into a small ravine.  Some of these landings looked pretty clumsy and I was glad to have had such a savvy and skilled pilot.  After things were cleared away, the crew broke out some champagne and also fruit juice options to celebrate our successful cruise.  It was so much fun!  Even though I was exhausted, I was up and thrilled with the adventure.   

The Stone House Cave proved to be a great choice particularly because the three guys who ran the place loved to practice their English and were glad to talk and share about their lives and families, hopes and dreams.  They made themselves available from early in the morning until late at night, very capable of answering any question or arranging any request for their guests.  

On the following day, I took a van into Nevsehir airport and flew to Dalaman on the Mediterranean coast, south of Bodrum and north of Fethiye.

In honor of Selim

Clear Being

I honor those who try to
rid themselves of lying,
who empty the self and have
only clear being there.

Close to Being True.    Rumi

How can we know the divine qualities
from within?  If we know only
through metaphors, it's like when children ask
what sex feels like and you answer,
"Like candy, So sweet".
The suchness of sex comes
with being inside the pleasure.
Whatsoever you say about mysteries,
"I know or I don't know",
both are close to being true.  
Neither is quite a lie.

Where Does the Dance Begin, Where Does It End? Mary Oliver

Don't call this world adorable, or useful, that's not it.
It's frisky, and a theater for. Ore than fair winds.
The eyelash of lightning is neither good nor evil.
The struck tree burns like a pillar of gold.

But the blue rain sinks, straight to the white
feet of the trees
whose mouths open.
Doesn't the wind, turning in circles, invent the dance?
Haven't the flowers moved slowly across Asia, then Europe,
Until at last, now, they shine
in your own yard?

Don't call this world an explanation, or even an education.
When the Sufi poet whirled, was he looking
Outward, to the mountains so solidly there
Ina white-capped ring, or was he looking

to the center of everything: the seed, the egg, the idea
that was also there,
beautiful as a thumb
curved and touching the finger, tenderly,
little love-ring.

As he whirled,
oh jug of breath,
In the garden of dust?

Zikr

A naked man jumps in the river
hornets swarming above him.  
The water is the zikr,
remembering,
there is no reality but God.
There is only God.
The hornets are his sexual memories,
this woman, that, or if a woman, this man, that.
The head comes up.  They sting.
Breathe water.  
Become river head to foot.
Hornets leave you alone then.
Even if you're far from the river,
they pay no attention.
No one looks for stars when the sun's out.  
A person blended into God does not disappear.
He or she is just completely soaked in
God's qualities.  
Do you need a quotefrom the Qur'an?
All shall be brought into our presence.
Join those travelers.  
The lamps we burn go out,
some quickly.  
Some last till daybreak.
Some are dim, some intense;
all are fed with fuel.  
If a light goes out in one house,
that doesn't affect the next house.
This is the story of the animal soul,
not the divine soul.  
The sun shines on every house.
When It goes down, all houses getdark.
Light is the image of your teacher.
Your enemies love the dark.  
A spider weaves a web over a light,
out of herself makes a veil.
Don't try to control a wild horse
by grabbing its leg.
Take hold the neck.  Use a bridle.
Be sensible.  Then ride!  There is
a need for self-denial.
Don't be contemptuous of old obediences.  
They help.