Göreme

There are a handful of small towns in Cappadocia. We stayed in a town called Göreme. We pulled in at 10:30pm, a bus of sleepy teachers who worked hard all week. I wasn't expecting to see anything that night, and was looking forward to waking up to see the crazy rock features for the first time against blue sky. But as we drove on the windy roads in between the fairy chimneys, spotlights were shining every which way, lighting up the buttes. I quickly woke up from my grogginess. It was like a little fairy land.

We stayed in Gümüş Cave, a hotel built into the side of a butte with cave rooms, and a beautiful garden where we were served our breakfast. Everything in this town was in a cave! We ate lunch in a cave, shopped in caves, slept in a cave, visited caves! And many of the people who lived in town were inhabiting old cave dwellings. They installed wooden doorframes and windowframes, and flowerbaskets hung from the windows. The cars parked nearby were an anachronism. While Wall Street was crashing in NYC, I was making plans for my second home in a cave in Turkey.