Friday, November 26th, 2004

Now we’ve left Ankara in our rented car and made the journey to Nevşehir. This city is a bit southeast of Ankara, maybe a four hour drive, and really is located in the heart of Anatolia. As we were driving it began to snow more and more… which paralleled with the Orhan Pamuk book I’ve been reading called Snow. In this story, the main character Ka is taking a trip out east to the city of Kars, located near the Armenian border. After he arrives in Kars he awakes the next day to find that the snow has blocked all the roads leading to Kars. And what do you know? We awoke in Nevşehir to find that the same thing had happened to us!

We came to Nevşehir to attend a conference, the first annual conference for technical school presidents in Turkey (my father will give a speech about CCID project goals in Turkey). And on the eve of the conference, about 150 presidents were trapped on the roads, waiting for the snow to clear before they could come in! What a strange coincidence.

One of the incredible things about Nevşehir is that resides in the region known as Cappadocia. This area is a mountainous region that was formed about 30 million years ago. Erupting volcanoes blanketed the area with tons of ash.
This ash solidified into an easily eroded material called tuff, which was overlaid in places by layers of hard volcanic rock. Over time this tuff was worn away, creating very interesting rock formations. Additionally, since the tuff is easy to dig into, the people living in these areas began to excavate to create dwellings. In some places, like Derinkuyu, entire cities were dug underground, holding living quarters, stables, wells, ventilation systems, churches and storage rooms. The whole area seems like something out of a fantasy novel. There’s nothing else like it in the world. In fact, places here have been declared by UNESCO to be World Heritage Sites.

We visited the Göreme Open-Air Museum, located in a valley, where a huge concentration of rock-cut chapels and monasteries exist. Many of these churches hold Byzantine frescos showing biblical scenes, especially about the life of Christ and the deeds of some saints. I really can’t do these places justice, you must look at the web links and then try to come and visit! We also clambered through the underground city in Derinkuyu (my dad was scared!), visited the Fairy Chimneys, and went to a pottery workshop where a single family has been creating ancient-style (Hittite and others) pots and other ceramics for over 200 years. This was a remarkable place and really is one of the most wonderful things I’ve seen in my lifespan. Highly recommended.