Was lucky enough to spend a week in Cappadocia ( from Persian: Katpatuka meaning “the land of beautiful horses” ) recently. Easily the weirdest physical location I have ever been, so many odd shapes and silhouettes, windows and doors where the eye doesn’t expect to see them, hand carved rooms to climb around in, that lead to more of the same, but different, and surprisingly for it’s desert climate, food growing in every spare bit of land – watermelons, grapes, corn, sunflowers, herbs etc etc. Apparently the soft rocks that make up the region are deposits from ancient volcano eruptions millions of years ago, which people carved out to form houses, churches, monasteries. There was around a million people living there at some point, but it’s now populated by sparse villages of a few thousand each, which leaves vastness to explore in between. Stayed at an enchanting village, Goreme, cafe with wifi, weird 3 storey melty rock buildings surrounding it in every direction, the option of walking back in time after breakfast – what’s not to love?
They have an International UFO Museum.
They have lots of hot air balloons.
They have a long, extended,crazy history.
Guess which civilisation is being referenced in the name chosen by Wu Tang Clan’s “Cappadonna”?. ( Go the Wu Tang Clan! Check out Cappadonna’s voiceovers in the the Wu Tang Clan overdubbed Kung Fu feature film, Iron Fist Pillage for more Wu Tangent ).
And yes, they have underground cities.
See BLDGBLOG for a rad post about the extent of Cappadocia’s hand-carved underground cities. Only managed above ground weirdness this time, but met an interesting German man Bernd Junghans, who has been exploring the region for six years and documenting all of the ancient churches and monasteries he finds there, with a photographer friend. One recent discovery was made because he wanted to go to the toilet behind a bush, noticed a hole low down in a wall, went inside and found himself facing a monastery! He said the publically accessible underground cities go down 8 levels, but that he knew where to get access to a 20 level underground city, but it involved crawling through a lot small holes. Crazy collection of photos – of spaces – discovered by these two. Locals say there are hundreds more, even thousands, of these ancient buildings and that many people keep private that a hole in the back of their house leads to such a cave, because they don’t want government interference.
UPDATE : Recently uploaded a 5 minute clip I made after the trip, ‘Cappadocia skies‘, set to music by Swedish wunderkid, Extraboy.
can you give me any other names of underground city experts that you came across in cappadocia? im planning a trip over there as part of a fellowship and am looking for contacts. thanks!