A Hearty Welcome in Cappadocia by Claire Gervat

There’s a dentist in Urgup. I happened to find out this essential information because the old woman next to me on the bus to Ortahisar had just been there to have two teeth pulled out, a fact she demonstrated with a mime graphic enough to make me wince. Just for a moment, I wondered whether I shouldn’t have taken a guided tour after all.

Cappadocia certainly has enough worth visiting to provide the local tour agents with a fistful of day-long itineraries. In this extraordinary part of central Turkey, the ash and mud from volcanic explosions 30 million years ago has formed a soft stone called tuff, which has eroded over time into fanciful shapes. Not only that, generations of inhabitants have carved out cave houses, churches and even underground cities from the rock, so it is not just the landscape that is worth further investigation.

The small but ever growing town of Goreme is one of the few places in the area where the rock-cut houses are still in use. Many of them have been restored as simple hotels; Goreme is, along with Urgup, the main place to stay in Cappadocia, as its rows of carpet shops, travel agents and bike hirers show only too clearly. Its chief attraction, though, is a mile and half out of town towards Urgup. Here, at the open-air museum, is a cluster of around 30 rock-cut churches, mostly from the ninth to the 11th century, and each with its own distinguishing characteristics.

The 11th century church of St Basil, for instance, has long rectangular shapes cut into its rock floor, which I gleaned from a passing tour guide were graves. The wall frescos in the slightly newer Church of the Sandals have been badly damaged by graffiti carved into their surfaces in past years; handy if you want to study local teenage romances, but otherwise incredibly annoying. These are not the only ruined frescos in the museum; others were deliberately damaged by having their eyes scratched out. But my favourite is Tokali Church, just outside the complex, with its blue-grounded frescoes, and narrow friezes of Christ’s life piled up across the vaulted ceiling.

A couple of hours at the Goreme open-air museum should satisfy anyone’s appetite for rock-cut churches for a good long time, and left me with an urge to stray off the tourist trail and assemble a less predictable collection of memories. So, on my second day in Cappadocia, I jumped on the bus to Ortahisar in search of adventure.

Ortahisar is one of several small villages within the triangle of roads that connect the small towns of Avanos, Nevsehir and Urgup, the most heavily visited part of Cappadoccia. It is not on the tour itineraries, however, despite the rock-cut fortress that towers over the village centre, so you can wander around the tiny lanes that twist below it without bumping into anyone much, let alone another tourist. The place to start is the rock, 86 metres high, which once housed the whole village, a fact that becomes all the more incredible the higher up you puff through the bare chambers. Sadly, there are no clues to what daily life here was like, but the view over the village and the surrounding fields from the top makes up for any disappointment on that score, even if you feel a bit like a spy as you look down into people’s courtyards.

Back on solid ground, I wandered down the dusty lanes below the fortress, scattering chickens in my path and dodging the animal droppings; no prizes for guessing that agriculture is still the main business in this village. Backing out of an alleyway that had come to a dead-end at a particularly pungent stable, I nearly fell over a hunched-over old woman struggling up the hill. She recovered quickly enough from the shock to ask if I was on my own. “One? Two?” she questioned. “One,” I replied, using up my entire Turkish vocabulary. Ah, she seemed to say with her shrug, me too, but what can you do? And she carried on up the hill.

Twenty minutes later, I saw her sitting with four other women in the doorway to a courtyard, eating lunch. They beckoned me over to join them in their meal of bread, watermelon, grapes and a paste made with ground spices and olive oil, and while we ate the gentle questioning began. Nothing as trivial as a lack of a common language was going to stop my hosts finding out everything they could. In return, I had the chance to study local dress: trousers so baggy they look like skirts, worn with blouses and knitwear; a double layer of headscarf, the lower and darker one tied to cover the chin, the white and embroidered one on top for decoration.

When that was over, I wandered back to the main road, past caves that were being used to store lemons, looking for the head of Rose Valley, a local beauty spot, and the starting point to a footpath to the next village, Cavusin. The owner of the nearby campsite offered me a lift there, which was gratefully accepted. Hitchhiking isn’t always the best idea when you’re on your own, but the only threat turned out to be to my waistline, since we bumped into a friend of his - a former mayor - who fed us huge slabs of pide (Turkish pizza) off the bonnet of his car.

The top of Rose Valley is a popular viewpoint, especially at sunset when the rocks glow red and orange in the warm light and the car park fills with coaches. Earlier in the day it’s much quieter, and as I scrambled alone down the path past a small group of buildings that looked a little like stone wigwams, I had the place to myself. The walk through Rose Valley and neighbouring Red Valley took me through fields and over ridges, past rock-cut churches dangerously hard to climb in to and decorated pigeon houses so high up you wonder how they were carved out. There was no one around, not even the farmers, and only the sound of birds singing.

It was almost a relief to reach Cavusin and see shops and cafes again. Most of the village’s inhabitants had to move out of their cave houses into more modern ones because they became too dangerous, as at nearby Zelve, now an open-air museum. However, you can still visit the fifth-century Church of St John the Baptist, as long as you don’t suffer from vertigo, as it’s in a perilous position halfway up a cliff face. Otherwise you have to content yourself with admiring its carved and colonnaded exterior from the ground as I did; my need for hot, sweet Turkish coffee easily overcoming my need for yet another rock-cut church.

Not that I considered that the next day as I headed south from Urgup to look at the little-visited Pancarlik group of churches. It made a good excuse for a country walk, after all, with glimpses into other people’s lives. Just after the turning off the main road there was a group of stone houses that looked like Ku Klux Klan hoods; they looked as if they might be in use. Further along, a man was tilling the fields with a mule-drawn plough. Further still, a farmer was praying in the open, the call to prayer from Urgup plainly audible through the clear air.

The church itself, when I finally reached it, was interesting, but probably not worth the walk. Luckily, the walk itself was worth it, not only for the views across to Urgup and Ortahisar but for the sound of birdsong and the tumbled landscape, the rocks coloured pink, green or purple by various minerals.

Back in Urgup, footsore and weary, I wandered round the last few stalls of the weekly market. Nothing there to buy (fresh fish makes a bad souvenir), so I turned to the handicraft shops. In every one the owner offered a little cup of strong black sugary tea and a chair by the stove, since outside high summer the evenings are decidedly chilly. Even buying a long-distance bus ticket seems to entitle you to tea and a chair by the stove. Or perhaps I just looked thirsty.

I was certainly hungry. The third day in Cappadocia hadn’t turned up any free meals at all, so I settled into the nearest family restaurant, enticed by the smell of roasting lamb. It was quiet - off-season - so the waiter laid the table next to the stove and left the television on for me. Just as well he did, for I found out that the Smurfs aren’t nearly as annoying in Turkish as they are in English. Not perhaps what you’d go all the way to Cappadocia to find out, of course, but a welcome discovery all the same.