Of Fevers and Fairy Chimneys - Cappadocia and Ankara
I have this theory: Night buses cause Soul Jetlag. Stiff from contorting itself into positions that would impress a ringmaster, my body arrives in some town early in the morning, while my mind is peacefully asleep in some other dimension, where spending 12 hours on a bus is punishable by death. Faced with a new place and a new day, I proceed to thrust myself into the sunlight, forgetting that four blocks of ten minute-sleep is not nearly enough fuel for my Gonzo engine. For the same effort, I could have flown around the world, but instead I’m just 400km up the road, impressed that I saved a night’s accommodation, when I could happily pay thousands of dollars for a chiropractor to solve the Rubik’s Cube that is now my spinal chord. So I wander around like a zombie for a few days, searching for something I’ve lost, besides a good night’s sleep. This is how I started my week.
From Fethiye, I took a night bus to Cappadocia, a region in central Turkey famous for its bizarre, alien landscapes. Half asleep in frog’s pajamas, I looked out the window to see fairy chimneys poking out of giant, windowed anthills I rubbed my eyes, thinking I was stuck in an intense ten-minute siesta dream, but no, the anthills were real. Three million years ago, there was a huge volcanic eruption in the area, covering the hills with tufa, a soft mixture of ash, lava and mud. Wind and erosion got to work to create these bizarre phallic structures that exist nowhere else on the planet, and it didn’t take long before our hairy ancestors carved homes and fortresses into them. While homo sapiens have since moved out of their caves and into their condos, Cappadocia still has a thriving troglophyte (cave-dwelling) population. Including tourists like me, who get the unique opportunity to stay in cave hotel rooms, and even cave hostel dormitories. To describe the region as surreal is a disservice to the word. Odd, strange, bizarre, weird, dreamlike, unreal…that’s my entire Word thesaurus, but you get the point. My hostel was called The Flintstones (hah hah) and while the temperature rocketed outside, the cave rooms were cool, dark and quiet. They also had modern bathrooms (shower doors!), unlike every modern building I’ve stayed in so far in Turkey. I figured the best way to explore the region was with a scooter, leaving the helmet behind and gunning every cc out the Peugeot 100. Some areas looked like God had dumped thousands of tons of peach mousse onto the landscape. Others were, look, phallic is not the word. I don’t mean to be crude, but before my eyes lay entire forests of circumcised penises. Seriously. Look at the pictures and tell me otherwise. Once more, it is evidence beyond doubt that God has a sense of humour. As if to prove the point, the topic of circumcision kept coming in conversation later that evening. Did you know all Turkish men are circumcised when they are thirteen? I digress. The erect rock structures are known more poetically as fairy chimneys, which is one of the more creative euphemisms for dongs I’ve heard in a while.
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