A Hike in Cappadochia’s Main Valley
For the first few days of our Eastern Turkey Road Trip, Emily and I stopped in Cappadochia. We stayed in Uchisar, which is outside of Göreme, the main tourist area. Uchisar is one of the three fortresses that you can see rising from the plains around Cappadochia, especially when you’re in a hot air balloon. Here it is bathed in the morning sun:
We decided to do a day hike in the Red Valley. I’ve always been confused about the name of this valley. I basically know where it is, and know that it’s easy to get to from the Panorama Parking Lot. But when I was setting up a hike for the Girl Scouts last month, we had difficulty discerning the Red Valley from the Rose Valley and the Cavusin area. As Emily and I found out, it’s all the same place! In our quest to go off-trail, and then trying to get back on any trail, we traversed the entire valley. Let’s just say it involved a lot of climbing soft rock faces, and several butt-slides to get ourselves back down.
Here’s what we saw along the way:
And of course, hikes are always awesome for spotting interesting bits of nature. We saw most of these, especially the butterflies, when we were following a creekbed in our hopes to find the trail again.
