Ihlara Valley 1

Yesterday we hired a guide to take us through the Ihlara Valley, a small Grand Canyon-like valley in Cappadocia. Our guide, Gaye, was from Middle Earth Travel, a good company that designs treks and hikes for small groups of independent travellers -- so no big bus groups and no trips to some uncle's carpet shop. We were the only ones on the tour! We had a great time and highly recommend this guide company to other travellers.

The 6-hour trek through the Valley was spectacular: lots of trees and flowers, a cool stream at the bottom, and steep canyon walls with hundreds of churches and caves carved high-up into the rock. Some of the churches have interesting frescoes.

We ended the day with a swim in a volcanic crater turned lake.

Here are some pics, which unfortunatly do not do justice to the real scenery:







This fresco is from an iconoclastic period in which images of Christ and other biblical characters were considered not cool. So they used the infinity symbol instead.


This fresco depicts the Three Wise Men but in Dervish dress!