We got up stupid-early this morning to watch the quintessential Cappadocia experience: Hundreds of hot-air balloons flying over the fairy chimneys at dawn.  We'd sort-of seen it yesterday morning as our overnight bus drove into Cappadocia at 6:30am, but we were too tired to take photos from a moving bus. (Also, a side note about our overnight bus trip: We chose the company because of its name, Kamil Koc. I mean, who wouldn't want to ride a Kamil Koc all night, amirite? Our glee was slightly dampened when we were told it's pronounced "Camel Coach." Oh, and we also chose it for its safety record. Definitely.) 

When we got to our guesthouse's rooftop, we realized we SHOULD have attempted the hot air balloon photos yesterday when we had the chance- because due to winds, all the balloons were cancelled for today. So we went back to bed until 8am. Poop.

When we restarted our day a bit later, we decided to flag down a dolmus to visit the nearby town of Uchisar. You can see its dramatic fortress from Goreme, and we wanted to see the fairy chimneys surrounding the castle. Fairies! Castles! All I need is cupcakes and unicorns and I could die happy.  

Uchisar is visually stunning. We've seen a lot of clifftop castles and fortresses, but usually the castle is built ON TOP of the cliff. In Uchisar, the castle was built INTO the cliff, out of the rock itself. We walked the several hundred steps to the top, and the view down into the fairy chimneys and the valley is dizzying. It looks like you are staring down into hundreds of little pointy gnome heads. I know I've said this before, but this place is just wildly unlike anywhere else.

We explored the fascinating rock structures around the base of the castle- whether they were part of the castle, or homes of the townspeople we weren't sure- but it looked like a Claymation movie set. Even weirder, some people still live in the rocks, complete with satellite TV and long extension cords for their appliances. Some enterprising locals have even set their front entrances up as tea cafes. It's just amazing.

It was beginning to get very warm, so we decided to seek liquid refreshment at Uchisar's very own winery, Kocabag (pronounced Coach-a-baj, not "Cock-a-bag," sadly). The Anatolian region we're in has been winemaking for over a thousand years, and uses grapes only found in this region. The wines are surprisingly good, and after a boozy round of red, white, and rose tastings, we bought a bottle of red, made from Okuzgozu and Bogazkere grapes. And I have no idea how either grapes are pronounced, by the way.

We walked back to the dolmus stop, and flagged another one to the underground city of Derinkuyu. This is one of Turkey's famous underground cities, carved out in ancient times by the Hittites in the 3rd century BC. These aren't just cute caves- the Hittites were not fucking around. In its heyday, Derinkuyu housed 10,000 people within seven levels, as deep as 300 feet.  Frankly, this I had to see.

Touring Derinkuyu requires descending down through a long, narrow, dark tunnel into the bowels of the city.  The rooms are fascinating- you can see churches, schools, baths, kitchens with blackened ovens, and sleeping quarters, all hewn from the stone.  The genius of Derinkuyu is its air shaft design- at no time is there a lack of fresh air, even deep underground. The air shafts resemble wells, and run from the aboveground entrances to the very bottom.  Looking back up the air shafts from the bottom made my head spin. I frankly cannot imagine living underground with no sunlight in one of these cities; but apparently they weren't unusual. Thirty-seven of these underground cities have been discovered in Turkey, and there are AT LEAST one hundred more to be excavated. Holy shit!! THE DOOZIERS WERE REAL!!  (Apologies for the obscure "Fraggle Rock" reference, y'all. But it's my blog, so there.)

We stopped at a small park in Derinkuyu's main square for lunch, where a family was selling spinach pies and tea. The weather suddenly changed, and the 90F temperatures became 70F and rainy. We had no umbrellas or long-sleeved clothing, so we flagged down a dolmus to head back to Goreme.

Later in the evening, we walked up the hill from our guesthouse to Goreme's highest spot, "Sunset Ridge," to have a beer and watch the sun set over the fairy chimneys. However, the rainy weather returned, and we can add "sunset in Cappadocia" to the list of sights we didn't get to see here.   We consoled ourselves with delicious Cappadocian clay pot stews for dinner, and more wine. Wine fixes everything.

So that concludes our time in amazing Cappadocia; tomorrow we fly to Istanbul for several days before heading home to London.  But that's nobody's business but the Turks'.