“This is the Silk Road. The trade in spices, silk, gold and silver travelled along this road. Because of the fear of bandits they built cavaraseries along the route where people could stop for the night. The caravans could only cover about 40 miles a day. "
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Mehmet pointed out that snow fell through a hole in the roof to a pool beneath. It was used for water in the winter but in summer the area was covered over and long into the summer they had ice and cold water.
The terrain of cappadoecia was exciting. A volcano had formed much of it. Most significantly the yellow rock which was light made for excellent building material. The rock was also soft so that caves could be dug easily. The area is rich in potatoes and when there’s a bumper harvest the price goes down. Farmers then load them into the cool caves and wait till the price rises with scarcity to make a profit.
Nature made the fairy chimneys and people had superstitions around them. They had a mushroom shape. In the hills up high, people built their cave homes and had cave churches because this was safer from enemies. Also it was above the mosquitoes and others bugs, cool in the summer and warm in winter. Today there are cave hotels where tourists can stay.
Mehmet told me that the country has always been goo
d for farming but that the best fertilizer is pigeon quano. So people kept pigeons and men even got wives based on the number of pigeons they kept and the amount of quano they could produce. The pigeons were kept in the holes in the hills. Today they’re bred more for beauty. They're kept in little caves still and the guano is still important as fertilizer. The area is famous for its potatoes but increasingly tourism is becoming the big industry,.
Those two holes are the church I was in.
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View from inside the church, looking out.
Another church.
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