Magical Cappadocia

 

Picture a beige moonscape.

Imagine each crater inflating to a tall stone mushroom— a fairy chimney. Paint a dazzling blue sky with sun articulating each dune-like shadow by day and transforming it to luminous rose and magenta at dusk. Waft a few blue-and-red-striped hot-air balloons above, and you’re in Cappadocia, Turkey’s geologic marvel.

I love Cappadocia, and the Kelebek is my favorite hotel in Turkey. Now a cave hotel, it was once the home of Ali Yavuz, who I’m pleased to call a friend. No wonder, since I’ve stayed in his hotel at least ten times. The Kelebek is a marvel, a maze of carved-out rooms, suites, spas, and offices. Ali and his friend Mehmet started the hotel with four rooms, and it now boasts 36. Sitting atop the entire edifice (if you could call it that) is a cozy, friendly restaurant with a sunny terrace overlooking the city of Göreme, one of Cappadocia’s smaller cities. Totally charming.

We enjoyed our four nights in Cappadocia, reveling in the beauty of its eerie, fascinating environs. On a hike through the Rose Valley, our guide Suleman led us through a small, unassuming entry, up a few carved steps, and into a vast cathedral carved into the stone by Christians hundreds of years ago. A stray dog had followed us on our trek, and she curled up happily in an anteroom beside the chancel (alter area) as a cloudburst pattered outside.

 

We did wine tastings, explored an underground city (where Christians hid from invaders), and enjoyed a hamam in Cappadocia, but the highlight of the trip for me was a breakfast adventure with Ali Yavuz, the Kelebek owner.

He’d invited our group of six to a farm breakfast on our last morning, and though we were nervous about riding in a trailer behind a tractor, my friends agreed to take the chance. It was amazing. A modern trailer pulled what looked like a jointed wooden schooner, which transported twenty of us through Göreme’s winding, narrow streets and up to a plateau above the city. Disney World offers no rides as exciting or picturesque. Ali stopped to share the history of the valley we were headed for, his family’s “outpost” where they raised livestock and grew grapes, citrus fruits, and nuts. He walked us to the edge of the plateau, where an endless path of stairs carved into the sandstone “dunes” led down into the valley, explaining how he’d trudged up those stairs with heavy baskets of fruit as a boy. We trekked down hundreds of those stone steps and into a lush valley filled with fruit trees, singing birds, and Ali’s family farm.

The farm “buildings” were carved into the stone hillsides, and Ali pointed out tiny square openings carved high in the sandstone cliffs. “Inside those openings are rooms filled with indentations where pigeons nested, and we had to climb up and scrape out their manure for fertilizer.” It was a lot of work for a small boy, but his whole family worked hard, especially during the harvest.

We were invited to sit at a long table under the trees, spread with every kind of breakfast food imaginable: juicy tomatoes, stewed prunes, fresh cucumbers, relishes, nuts, olives, breads, salads, marmalades, and a variety of white cheeses (beyaz peynir). Then came the menemen (an egg dish slathered with a spicy tomato and pepper sauce), gözleme (a Turkish version of quesadillas), courgettes (Turkish fritters), more bread— and tea. All the tea we could drink.

Finally, we could eat no more, and Ali guided us through his family cave home, presenting us with glasses of homemade wine (not too bad). Then he showed us the farm’s outdoor kitchen, storerooms, chicken coop, and animal pens, explaining what their life had been like before electricity and plumbing. Finally, he walked us up a road at the far end of the valley where we once again mounted our tractor/schooner for the heart-stopping ride back to the hotel.

Magical. Just magical.