Turkey Bizarre

Tina brought a magazine article all about Cappadocia entitled “Turkey Bizarre” she had cut out of a magazine some 15 years ago because it sparked her imagination and inspired her to travel here one day. On our our first night in this high Anatolian plateau as the sun was setting and our group gathered at Doug’s terrace overlooking this bizarre landscape with Cappadocian wine in hand, Tina happily announced, “It’s every bit as beguiling and romantic as I envisioned it would be when I filed the article away and declared I would come here some day.”

Deep layers of volcanic tuft eroded over 30 million years have been shaped and molded into fantastic spires known as Peri Bacalari, or “fairy chimneys” in travel literature, but once you’re here you understand why they call one canyon we hiked through “Love Valley”: towering phallic formations of pointed basalt caps that resisted erosion are perched high atop cylindrical spires jetting straight into the sky. It’s as if you are walking into the middle of Earth making love to Heaven. 

Frank Wynne, the author of Tina’s article describes Cappadocia “….dreamlike as a Dali canvas—mysterious, melting, magical.”