Whirling Dervishes, Belly Dancing, and a cave city

Trip Start May 15, 2007
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Trip End Aug 29, 2007


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Flag of Turkey  ,
Tuesday, August 14, 2007

I started the day out at Ataturk's Mausoleum in Ankara.  It was very interesting and much larger than I expected.  It was full of information about Ataturk and his reforms and he even gave his daughter a revolver as a birthday gift!  In a way, the mausoleum reminded me of the Stalin nuseum in Gori, Georgia, though at the same time completely different.

Traveling toward Cappadocia I visited Hacibektaş, the holiest site for the Alevis.  Then it was onto the cave city of Kaymakli.  It was amazing!  I thoroughly enjoyed it though we were a bit rushed as a result of the number of people inside the cave city.

Ah...Turkish Night.  A night of folk dancing, music, and belly dancing.  We got into the bus and the driver blasted the Turkish music and turned on the blue lights inside the bus as we sped along the road
Hacibektas
Hacibektas
.  Afterwards, everyone was pulled into the dance and we danced from inside to outside and finally back inside the complex.  Everyone participated: Christians, Muslims, everyone. 

The next day, we hiked the Red Rose Valley in Cappadocia.  The geological formations were fasdinating.  It was great that one of the hikers, George a geologist from Australia, told us all about hoe the fairy chimneys were formed.

After the hike, we made our way to Uçhisar to climb the castle for a marvellous panorama of landscape of Cappadocia.  We then went to the Göreme Open Air museum and wandered through the monasteries cut into the rock. 
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