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| Hotel Room built into a cave |
We have arrived in a delightful region of Turkey called
Cappadocia. Translated it means the place of beautiful horses. It has natural
rock formations called fairy chimneys.
They are made by volcanic ash compacted over thousands of years and then
eroding from water, leaving these interesting formations. It is strong rock but very light, like pumice
stone. The most interesting thing is that ancient civilisations carved them out
and lived in them, dating back to 7000BC.
There are still people living in these homes, with running water,
electricity and plumbing installed. Our hotel is one such place.
It is absolutely fascinating and also very luxurious.
Turkey just continues to delight us. It is so interesting and varied. We drove through some pretty primitive
villages today – not quite 3rd world. Tauck, our travel guides, have a foundation
and help a school in one such village.
The bus stopped there today and the kids in the school – all 36 of them
– were very excited. More advanced than
an African village but the similarities are there. The big difference is that the Turkish
government is doing their very best to modernised the entire economy. Western Turkey is very western/European. We are in the central region. The east where
the Kurds live and they are a real problem for the rest of the country. In the past 10 years there has been a
political drift to the right wing conversative Islamist parties and this is a
great source of concern to the secular educated Turks.
