A Long Walk in Gorëme

Pasabagi, Turkey

For those who wonder, there are several bus companies linking Istanbul and Göreme. All of them stop in Nevsehir, from where you need to transfer to another bus.

In some cases, it is possible to book online. We chose Nevsehir company to get there and Suha to come back. I personnaly liked the second one better. In both cases, schedules are about the same, departures being around 7 PM or 8 PM. Destination is reached about 12 hours later.

That said, when we got to Nevsehir, we were told we needed to change buses. We reunited with travelers who left 30 minutes before us the night before... In the end, they had no advantage on taking an earlier departure.

At Göreme information desk, right in the center of the village, they are used to see tourists coming. As soon as you get there, they ask for the name of your hotel so they can call them to pick you up. On our side, we chose a room at Guven Cave Hotel, where service was very good. They gave us a very good apple tea before showing us our room. Even if it was before 8 AM. Elsewhere, they probably would have asked us to wait until 11 AM or noon.

Sorry we didn't take a picture of the room... even if we let another guest get in so he could take one. We forgot to do the same.

From there, the hostel crew recommended a walk around the villages nearby. Considering it was windy and cloudy, I put jeans on. An error I would have to tolerate all day under a very bright sun.

First stop was the Göreme Open Air Museum. Most of it is churches carved in the rock, with paintings on the walls. After a while, they all looked the same.

As most tourists were going back the way they came, we kept on walking on the road to go down in Rose Valley, a walk of approximately 6 km, in a canyon, in total calmness. Bring water. Orange juice stands are spaced out. Same for the food.

At the very end of the road, we got in, Çavusin, a place I liked a lot. It feels like the middle of nowhere, in a village where a moutain where houses we carved is looming. Those were abandonned a long time ago. There is a path, from behind, to get to the very top. We didn't know! We became acrobats and climbed, floor by floor, to visit it from inside. The feeling of being somewhere else!

On our way down, we wanted to go to Pasabagi, known for its giant rock mushrooms. As the sky was getting covered again, we finally got some directions with the universal hands language. 'Cause the road wasn't well signposted.

After thinking of going back to the hotel, we finally found it. There, restaurants, souvenir shops... only things put up for strangers.

Our biggest problem was to find out transportation to go back to Göreme. If it seems like buses are going around, they stop early. We needed to negociate with a local so he would bring us back in town... Because after walking all day long, we didn't want to go all the way back on foot.