One of the many activities in Cappadochia is mountain biking.... And we were game! It's been a long time since we've done any serious bike rides, so we chose a local operator called Middle Earth that runs custom bike tours. We met our guide, Hami, at 9:00am and got suited up.
We headed out of Goreme on the same cobbled road that leads towards the Open Air Museum. Soon we veered off the road and got into some real riding. I soon realized that Beth may have thought Mountain Biking meant riding on nice wide dirt roads, but we were definitely headed to some single track and more technical riding today. I also relaized that when Hami said "is everyone comfortable with the gearing on the bike" as we left and there was a chorus of "yup, no problem", not everyone was telling the whole truth and nothing but the truth... But I digress.....
Hami was great - a nice combination of enthusiasm and knowledge, and he was able to connect with the kids pretty well. Hami was from the Black Sea area, the youngest of seven siblings - all of his other siblings were married and with him being just 24, I could understand why he moved to Cappadocia!
We would ride a bit, and after some tougher sections, we would pause for a bit of background on what we were seeing. It was a good time for the kids to recover s bit. It felt great to back on a bike! Beth seemed to get the hang of things with the gears fairly early on (maybe because they work the same way as gears on every bike she's ever ridden.... :-)), but Abby was having a tougher time - exacerbated by periods of extreme fatigue as we were doing a fair bit of technical climbing.
At one point, Hami was explaining that the only place in the world that was similar to Cappadocia was Yosemite National Park. With his thickish accent, I "translated" for Abby telling her that Hami was talking about "yo-se-mitt-tee", and Abby said "you mean, Yo-sa-mite"... I said, no, and corrected her.
In private a few minutes later, with some tired legs after a tough section, Beth was unloading on me about not helping enough with her gearing and Abby unloaded on me for correcting her on Yo-sa-mite... I couldn't help but chuckle... They were not in a good space - if I had Snickers bars I would have administered them stat!!
Like I said, there were technical sections - narrow paths, twists and turns and steep downhills where you had to ride your brakes, keep calm and trust the bike. I guess Beth and Abby were not trusting the bike too much and that didn't help with the stress levels. You also had to be quick at changing gears, looking ahead at ramps and quickly shifting into the lowest gear or you were stuck walking.
Robin, on the other hand, took to the riding like an old pro. She is fearless and confident - a deadly combination. It reminded me of when she took off on the ATVs in Cambodia... "You good?" "Yup!" vrooooooommmmmmm!
Technical issues aside, we were all actually having fun - it was so peaceful and being in the middle of these landscapes with no one around was energizing.
When we got to the top of a section where we had climbed out of the entire valley we were in, we were met by a Turkish cowboy and his wife selling apples and water.... Giddy up!
We started back down into the valley. It was a ton of fun but you had to stay alert! I eventually came to a sign that was obviously created by a geographically challenged local.... Really? Everything was to the right?
Suddenly, the trail opened up and we practically ran into a little cafe run by a guy that looked like he hung out in a valley cafe every day and smoked weed between customers..... This guy was laaaaaiiiiidddd back. We had some freshly squeezed pomegranate / orange juice. Yum!
The little oasis was so cool....
I tore after Robin and Hami after the break, zipping in and out of longish tunnels that wove around the canyon floor.
When we reached a point where the valley opened up, Hami stopped us at a rock with a hole in the side about twelve feet off the ground. There were little dips in the rock underneath, and Hami urged us to climb up to the entrance. It took a little convincing, but Robin was first up. There were little spots carved into the stone where you could get a good grip, so we all made it up into the little chapel that was used by hermit monks. They would live here for six days out of seven, praying and reflecting by themselves.
We had definitely worked up an appetite. We rode to the little town of Mustafapasa and stopped at a beautiful restaurant overlooking the end of the valley we'd just rode out of.
I usually have low expectations of meals that are included in excursions, but this meal ended up being one of our favourites in Turkey so far... and that wasn't just the beer talking....
Mezze, a nice green salad with dill and pomegranate oil and vinegar dressing followed by "grandmother soup", a great tomato concoction.
Next up were the beef clay pot dishes. We'd had two of these in Cappadocia so far to mixed reviews. Robin and Abby were called over by the charismatic waiter and were tasked with breaking the clay pots open.
The result was so delicious. By the time we were done, even Hami was moaning and groaning with a full stomach.... To the bikes!!
On the way out of town, we stopped to look at the huge monastery that had been devastated by the 1956 earthquake in Turkey that led to the government banning people from living in the rock dwellings of the area. The monastery was massive and you could see the entire front section that had collapsed into huge boulders at the foot of the structure.
I talked to Hami about religion. We were talking about mosques and the cool sounding call to prayer (which he said was still mostly done "live" as opposed to playing a recording). He said he used to be much more religious, but since being in the tourism industry, he has essentially become agnostic. I asked him why and he said "I've simply become more open minded". I was impressed with this guy - he was pretty insightful and mature for a 24 year old male (sorry guys!).
Turkey has really struck me, from a religion perspective, as similar to Canada. Turkey is really on the far left of the scale when it comes to active religious participation. They don't talk about it, but I've heard up to 25-30% of people here would actually identify as agnostic/atheist, and I would think Canada would be similar, if not more. It's a very moderate, friendly, laid back society.
Our ride wasn't too hard after our late lunch. We rode out to the fairy chimneys, another unique, famous piece of this incredible landscape. Robin was suffering after lunch, but she was managing by herself. When we got to the chimneys, we stopped at another little oasis in the desert for another freshly squeezed juice.
The owner of the stop asked the girls to come help with the juice, and they were happy to oblige.
We rode back into town at about four thirty. When we got back to the hotel, we all had that glow you get with a great day of sun, fresh air and good excercise - a glow that we have not had enough on this trip. The kids seem so happy when they've been "taken out for a walk", and Beth feeds on these days.
At dinner, we laughed about some of the challenges of the day. We went over the (mis)pronunciation of Yosemite, and Abby still insisted that she was right. That brought up the memory in Kota Kinabalu of the girls and Versluis boys insisting that Levi's was pronounced "Levees". Thank Allah for the Internet....
No comments:
Post a Comment