It is Saturday morning 5 o'clock, 14th of November and after a long and busy week we are ready for a week of r&r. We are collected at the gate of the Marina by a taxi to take us to Dalaman to pick up our rental car from the airport. The booking.com site promises us that the rental company is in the Dalaman airport, but when arriving at 'Arrivals' we are told that our rental company is down the road a kilometer or 5 at a service station. So our driver delivered us there and we find the office unattended. Luckily the taxi driver finds out a phone number and summons the guy who arrives 10 minutes later. We get a fairly mature Ford diesel (almost 100,000 on the clock) instead of the new Renault Clio on the advert picture and soon we're on our way to our first stop Konya, 600 km inland.

The landscape of this part of inland Turkey was not at all what we had expected. The road to Konya shows us a very varied landscape with beautiful mountainous parts, large freshwater lakes (top-left picture) and steppes-like plains (top-right picture). We expected to see much more agriculture. The road is new and we're making good time. By the time we're about 250 km on our way to Konya, past the big city of Isparta (no, not Sparta) we're driving for what feels like two hours along the shores of a gigantic lake, Budur Gölü. After Isparta the roadworks start and we slow down to a snail's pace. That is a bit annoying as Chris really had set her mind to seeing the dervishes whirl in Konya (their headquarters in Turkey, it seems) and they only dance on Saturday night starting at 7:30 pm in the Mevlana cultural center. Chris had envisaged Konya to be a small remote town, but it turned out to be a very large city with a population of over a million people, so when we got into town by 6 that night, we first had to find our way to the hotel as the GPS sent us the wrong way. After getting some directions (of the hand gesturing kind) from a non-English speaking Turkish man, we were able to find our hotel. We very quickly checked in, disposed of our luggage and jumped back into the car and set off in search of the centre.
After a little more fun with the GPS we managed to find the Mevlana Museum where we asked for directions to the Dervish ceremony. An older woman came out to greet us and invited us to join her group in their bus, and took us to the cultural centre. It turned out that she was 22nd generation direct descendant of Rumi the poet, theologian, and founder of the Mevlevi (dervishes) Sufi order in Konya. He is also recognized as the creator of the Sema, the ceremony of which the whirling dervishes are a part. The up-turned right hand in the whirling dancer symbolizes the receiving of God's gifts and their down-turned left hand passes them on to the world (top-mid photo). Chris was delighted to be able to sit next to this lovely woman who quietly explained the ceremony to her as it happened. We thoroughly enjoyed this great experience which was part of a broader ceremony, not just a show performed for tourists.

The next morning, Sunday the 15th we headed off to the next stop Görëme in the Kapadokya region passing through lots of steppe-like farmland (top-right picture). Part of these lands have a top soil that looks more like ash than sandy soil. As these areas have a volcanic history, it may be mineral-rich volcanic soil.
As you round the bend and enter the valley where Görëme is situated, nothing can prepare you for the sudden wonder of this landscape. The fairy chimneys are the first thing that you notice, and the surreal alien look of the place. We stopped at the first opportunity to wander around and get photos amongst the tour groups and the vendors touting their wares and selling camel rides. We enjoy a tea and the spectacular view sitting on a little balcony of one of the cafes overlooking the valley.

Görëme is a smallish village in the Kapadokya (Capadocia) and the region around it is believed to have been settled by the Hittites between 1800 and 1200 BC. It is an area that lay on the border between the Greek and Persian empires and the inhabitants used subterranean tunnel networks to escape the incursions and the fighting. The region's monastic history is believed to have been established in the early middle ages, around 750. The region was also used by Byzantine Christians to establish many churches, dug out of the tuff rock columns (fairy chimneys). 'Hoodoos' is the general term for columns that are formed when a thin layer of hard rock protects a thick layer of softer rock from being eroded and are by no means uniquely Kapadokyan. In the Kapadokya region, the soft rock is 'tuff'. And tuff is a compacted and cemented aggregate of the fragments of exploding volcanic (igneous) rock. There seem to be two main geological forms, conical structures that do not have a hat (bottom-right), and the typical fairy chimneys with a hat (bottom-left). Both structures are being used as the base of dwellings and churches.

We finally arrived in Goreme and found our hotel which was built into the tuff rock and met the gregarious Ilyas, the hotel manager, who was happy to show us to our large upgraded cave room, including spa bath. Luxury, Chris happily indulged in a bath almost immediately. That night we dined in the hotel restaurant on kebabs cooked in sealed clay pots. It was great to watch Ali the waiter crack the tops off the pots with a hammer by gently tapping around the seal, we now understand why all the garden beds around here and the trees are adorned with these pots. To be continued!