My Thoughts on Cappadocia
So I’m going to talk about Cappadocia through a vanlife lens. I can’t speak to what it’s like to flying in to Istanbul and catching another flight or bus down to Cappadocia for the balloons. I can imagine that’s quite an adrenaline rush to experience all of that on a tight schedule. We spent 13 days straight in the Goreme/Avanos area. That’s a long time to be in such a compact space that, in my mind, has only a few things to do. I know I know, FUCKING BALLOONS GO CRAZY, BRO!!! Let’s get right into it, shall we? Okay so we didn’t even do the balloons. I know, wild, right? Well it was about 165 euros per adult to go up and we are stupid poor at this time and just couldn’t even begin to work that into the plans.
One of the other main things to do in Cappadocia is ride horses, doing a guided tour of the various valleys (Red, Rose,Pigeon, etc). That was in my mind, REALLY affordable, at about $35-$40 per person. We should have done that one. I’m realizing that we might sound boring and I SWEAR we aren’t (as evidenced by like, idk, living in a van driving around these continents for 2 years now). The horse tours look the least chaotic and I think would be the prettiest to photograph, with good lighting. I sort of wish we’d done one just for the film photographs we could have taken. The horses in Cappadocia are BEAUTIFUL. They are fed well and their coats are magnificent. I was really surprised at how healthy and strong these horses all looked, after having seen how four legged animals tend to look in these parts of the world. I highly recommend doing the horse tour, at sunset probably. Definitely sunset. That will be the busiest time for all the tours so maybe you like that, maybe you hate that and want a mid morning or afternoon horse tour, to enjoy a little bit more peace and quiet (the ATVs will totally dominate the sunset tours, IMO). I want to remind you again that we spent nearly 2 weeks here and live in a Ford Transit home, so, that’s our perspective. We don’t pay for parking ever and we really truly do kinda rough it. I say these things just so you don’t forget that when you wonder why we did and didn’t do activities. Oh also, we’re running out of money. I can say from witnessing hundreds of horses walk by our van for a week straight that the tour is slow, the guides are also on horses or walking by their horse with the lead, making sure the guests are doing alright. It seemed that usually there was a language barrier of sorts, limited commonalities, linguistically speaking. I would say that would just be somewhat of a factor is you’re someone that’s afraid of horses or their being any confusion while you’re mounted on a couple thousand pound beast. Actually I have no clue how much a horse weighs. There’s also this other thing I really wanted to do, speaking as a photographer, and that was to visit one of the horse ranches and take photos of Hyunjeong in and amongst the horses as they ran freely in their area. I can see those shots in my mind and they’re fucking beautiful. We didn’t do that. Hahhaa. Again. SHOULDAWOULDACOULDA should be the title of this post. We just didn’t do all the things and well, it’s okay. We will just have to come back and do them some other time.
Okay so the other main activity for those visiting Cappadocia are the ATV tours. This was the cheapest to do and also I’d say the dustiest. Fuckin hell there’s so much dust. The ATV tours don’t seem to vary in price, as there’s about 5000 ATVs in Cappadocia and all the companies charge the same price. 250 turkish lira per vehicle (2 people can ride one if you want) and that works out to about $15.81 as of today. SO AFFORDABLE !! Right? It’s a two hour tour of a few of the valleys and points of interest and they ALLLL end at this one sunset spot near Red Valley, where we were parked for about a week with a bunch of other vanlife friends from Europe. The ATV tour looks fun. I grew up in the South in ‘Merica and I heard a lot of stories of broken necks and arms and egos from crashed 4wheelers so I was super hesitant to put my incredible girlfriend on one, even on the back of one I was driving. I spoke to my mom a few days earlier and she LITERALLY told me she talked to a psychic and they said I was going to die in Turkey, so, YAY! Moms are so funny like that. She cried when we talked on the phone and I told her that I was coming home for the first time in 7 years. She cried and then told me she heard I was going to die from a psychic.
Mom. I love you. I’m still alive, for now. *wink*.
Okay so back to the ATVs: I say do it. It’s such a great price. Just be careful. Do NOT get on one of them with the tour guide as those muffuckas drive like a bat outta hell. They’re wild. I BEG you to wear a bandana or something over your nose and mouth, as i saw SO MANY weirdos not covering their holes as they drove through the dust storms of Cappadocia. Okay so we’ve covered ATVs, Horse tours and briefly talked about how we couldn’t afford to do the balloon thing. The Balloon tour only runs in the morning, which, I do not understand for the life of me. Run that thing 2 days a week at sunset as well, make that extra loot. Seems like a no-brainer to me. Anyways, you will be waking up around 3 or 3:30am and your driver will scoop you and you’ll be whisked away to a continental Turkish breakfast
(cheeses, olives, breads, tomatoes, chocolate cake for some reason, tea aka cay and also some very hotdog looking meats and bologna looking meats).
You’ll arrive at the balloon as it’s being filled with air, which I might add, is super rad and really cool to photograph. I spent many mornings down by the balloons taking photos of the fire and people and overall mood. It rocks. Everyone is so excited and it was the only time I found myself sort of bummed I wasn’t going up. I’d say the thing I would worry about the most would be the weather.
I wouldn’t want to go up if it was going to be a questionable weather day. If you’re in town for just one day then you don’t really have the luxury of choosing. All you can do is just try to keep an eye on the weather and stay in contact with the balloon company to try and choose the best day. I say that because on the great days, it’s fucking incredible and I say that standing from the ground. I can’t even imagine what it must look like from up there.
Oh wait, I can, because there’s a billion photos on Instagram. I think the fly time is about an hour, unless you want to go nuts and book a private balloon tour. When you land you’ll have some pink champagne and then the driver takes you back and you pass out until it’s beer:30.
Another thing that we saw a HEAVY amount of in Cappadocia were the photoshoots happening. Everyone is eithe getting engaged, married or sitting on a vintage American car getting their photo taken. I can’t overstate how many of these shoots go down in the sunrise hours. It’s most likely a really great place to do it, price-wise. I still haven’t ever crossed over into that Instagrammer that HAS TO RECREATE EVERY POPULAR IMAGE FROM EVERY POPULAR SPOT VISITED BY EVERY OTHER INSTAGRAMMER. I almost rented one of those dresses though. Almost. Can you see me on the cliffside with two turkish guys wafting my long flowy gown for the photos? hahahhaha.
Oh, right, beer. In Turkey there’s not a massive selection of beers. Definitely not the country to visit if you’re an IPAddict who can’t branch off and drink a simple pils or lager every now and again. You’ll see Efes and Tuborg the most. Efes is the one we’ve enjoyed the most because it’s so cheap, around 25 lira for one pint. You’ll also see Heineken in most places and sometimes Miller. Alcohol is taxed quite heavily in Turkey so it isn’t as cheap as food. For foods in Turkey you can surprisingly find lots of American big names: McDonalds, BurgerKing, KFC, Popeyes, Arby’s and Subway. Will you see any of those near Cappadocia? No actually. Well okay there’s one McDonalds in Avanos, which is only a ten minute drive from Goreme. You’re not in Turkey to eat that trash though, right? Okay so you’ll want to try “Pide”, because everyone tells you to try it. It’s flat canoe shaped pizza, essentially. It’s really cheap and delicious and I ate one yesterday for 45 lira ($3). Another item we’ve ordered every time is Lahmacun. I don’t have the Turkish keyboard on my computer so I can’t use the proper alphabet. Lahmacun is like a thin crust pizza, sort of, but it’s a little gamey (minced lamb I think) and you’re meant to put lettuce on it and roll it up and eat it like a taquito or something. Hyunjeong loves it and orders it every time we go to one of the Pide places. It’s also super cheap, at about 20 lira ($1.30) and will fill up a person who isn’t a pig like me. I would eat two of them happily. Ummmm, what else.
Oh, Kebab and Kofte. You will see those two all over Turkey as well. In some parts of Turkey these are SUPER ChEAp, like, 35 lira for a massive meal. Sometimes even less and it comes with fries and a coke. When you get to the more touristy towns the whole game changes. I don’t know why but these dishes jump up like 100 lira. Oh, Kofte is translated by Google Translate to “meatballs”, and I’d say that’s pretty far off from what an American knows as a meatball. It’s a gamey/seasoned tiny hamburger that you get 5 of and you also get lettuce, onions and tomato on a side plate and you can just sort of eat it however you want. It’s tasty and I love it. I want some right now, actually. Shit. You’re also going to get a huge basket of bread wherever you go in Turkey. It’s like a … oh it’s exactly like garlic toast you’d eat with pasta but just not toasted or buttered or anything, just soft and yummy. I’m trying to make this as simple to understand as possible for American readers.
The MOST POPULAR drink in Turkey is called Ayran. The first time we tried it we were at this little tiny kebab spot in western Turkey and the owner didn’t even have the refrigerator turned on, to save money, I assume. That meant we got served a warm Ayran. Not yummy. Imagine drinking luke warm liquified parmesan. Oh you like that? You’re nasty. Gross. I actually had a dream last night that I drank a really cold Ayran and it was so good. Hyunjeong LOVES Ayran and when I tell you it’s cheap, that’s an understatement. It’s 5 lira. That’s like 20 cents. Google Ayran and figure it out yourself. Speaking as a person who travels and needs to work, I can pass along that we found a Starbucks in Avanos and the wifi is super fast and the drinks are incredibly cheap. A Venti fancy latte is 35 lira ($2.60). We went there many days to work and download Netflix shows on our phones. The SIM cards in Turkey are really great, compared to other countries we’ve traveled in the last two years. We got cards with Turkcell and I THINK we paid around 165 lira initially, each, so around 310 lira for two SIM cards and 30gb of data each. The data can be refilled at any Turkcell location, at any time, but with cash only. It currently costs 127 lira for 30gb and that’s lasting me about 3 weeks. Every wednesday on the Turkcell app they give away free prizes and sometimes it’s a free 10gb of data or 2gb of data just for Instagram, for example. That’s pretty rad when you’re hemorrhaging data for reels no one watches. H8u IG. Chincha. I am trying to finish this because it’s fucking too long. My god. Oh one other thing, we stayed at an AirBnb in Goreme that was only $30 a night for a hot shower and free continental Turkish breakfast. They also had a rooftop all setup with the pillows and whatnot for your CLASSIC Cappadocia photo shoots. The place we stayed at was called “My Home Cappadocia” and it is perfectly located in Goreme. Ah shit, I forgot all about the hiking. Fuck.
Okay so there’s a lot of valleys to hike in Cappadocia and I think this is one of the most beautiful aspects of the entire trip there. It’s insanely historic and beautiful and a great way to get some exercise in at 1000 feet above sea level. Rose Valley and Red Valley are the best two you can do and I do not recommend doing them midday on a hot day, like us idiots did.
There are these homes and churches built into the mountains that Christians used to hide from the Jehovah’s witnesses who come around knocking … oh wait, no, they were hiding from Romans, my bad. Jehovahs: relax. Does it ever work? It CAN’T POSSIBLY WORK. Anyway, do the hikes. I beg of you. They’re breathtakingly beautiful.
Another short subject: Dogs. Most people love dogs but if you’re weird and don’t, or have an allergy, Turkey has a LOT of street dogs. They’re usually all Anatolian Shepherd dogs that have traditionally been used as sheep defenders and they’re very sweet and loving and they want food from you. They love to follow us on hikes for some reason?
One last subject I want to touch on is for those doing vanlife, hoping to visit this area one day in their wheeled home. The area is packed with spots on Park4Night but I just want to warn you that most are not easy to find and or Google will drag your ass all up and down some tiny valley roads, completely not in the right direction. In Cappadocia either flying the drone to check out the area or taking a walk and scoping out zones was the best way to avoid getting wedged in some place difficult. I just wouldn’t arrive here at night, that would be a pain in the ass. Okay I think I’m going to end it there. If you have any questions just send me a DM on IG or comment down here somewhere.
