Caves in Goreme Open Air Museum

Caves in Goreme Open Air Museum

Carved stone dining table

Carved archway

Caves in Goreme Open Air Museum

Overgrown caves in the distance in Goreme

Caves in Goreme Open Air Museum

Tourists, lots of them

Church in Goreme Open Air Museum

Lots of caves in Goreme

Fairy Chimneys

Looking at the Rose Valley

Dusk in Goreme

Caves in Uchisar

Caves in Uchisar

Paintings in a church in the Ilhara Valley

The Ilhara Valley

Stone door in the underground city of Derinkuyu

Underground city of Derinkuyu

Rock formations near Urgup

Rock formations near Urgup

Zelve Open Air Museum

Zelve Open Air Museum

From the top of Uchisar Castle

From the top of Uchisar Castle

Uchisar Castle

Sunset over the Rose Valley

Goreme, Turkey

Caves, Fairy Chimneys, and Tourists

July 8, 2012

Now your world is way too fast

Nothing is real and nothing lasts

- Goo Goo Dolls

I walk past tourists speaking Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, English, Turkish, Russian, French, German, Korean, Japanese, Chinese, and Hindi, among others I am sure. The town is full of tourists and there is no escaping its touristy feel. The Open Air Museum features rock formations dotted with caves: living quarters, dining rooms, kitchens, and churches. With all the tourists and their tour guides it is hard to move in these small spaces, not designed for modern people of our size or for these group sizes. The caves themselves are not overly interesting and after queuing in line to see many it often doesn’t seem worth the wait when you enter a barren cave. Many of the higher level caves are inaccessible, perhaps due to blocked or unstable passageways. The way the people must have lived is what is interesting but there is little information or recreations to detail daily life in a cave complex such as this one. All that remain are artifacts like carved stone dining tables, rooms with shelves for storage, and kitchens with ovens for cooking.

The whole area around here is filled with cave complexes, bizarre rock formations, and underground cities. Even with all the tourists clambering over one another the scale of these developments is really impressive. Renting a car for the day was a big help in escaping some of the crowds, and the excessive costs of the local tours. One of the most impressive sites was Uchisar Castle, a giant fortress and array of caves built atop and through the highest point in the region. From the top there are sweeping views of everything from the colored rock ridges of the Rose Valley to the neighboring cities in each direction. Further south is the Ilhara Valley, a narrow canyon with an absurd number of churches carved into the canyon walls. In seven kilometers along this valley there are more than a dozen churches, some with amazing paintings that have sadly been defaced by people carving their names into the rock.

The underground city at Derinkuyu offers a change of pace from the monotony of seeing cave after cave after cave. Here a labyrinth of tunnels and stairways lead deep beneath the earth to a complex of chambers comprising a small city. Bending and stooping to navigate these tiny chambers amidst dim lighting and few signs was an unreal experience. At times it felt like being on the set of an Indiana Jones movie, complete with giant stone doors that could be rolled shut to seal off passageways. Returning to the surface was a welcome experience, except for the glaring sunlight and oppressive heat; perhaps that’s what drove these people underground to begin with.

As always, all these attractions come at a price, most of the time literally with admission fees that are up to 15 TL ($8 US). It might not seem like much but when you are visiting five or six sites in a day it adds up considerably. The other price is the degradation of the sites themselves. Guards man some of the more sensitive sites and try to prevent flash photos from bleaching the paintings or people from climbing over the delicate ruins. Huge tour buses clog the roads and their loads of passengers clog the walkways. Every restaurant in town seems to serve the same food at the same inflated prices. Scores of hotels and hostels all offering some form of cave rooms can be found on every street. At night, when most of the buses operate, the small bus terminal is lined with travelers from around the world, their backpacks and luggage beside them, waiting to move to the next destination. In a few hours I’ll be waiting there with them.