Cappadocia’s Changing Charms
Süha looked across at me, the brightness of his eyes lighting up his face, despite his mouth being hidden behind a blue mask. Imagining his smile came easily. “I first came here in 1979 to work in the tourism office and I fell in love with the place. This,” he gestured to the honey-coloured stone walls and arches of the cavernous room “used to belong to a Belgian couple. I told them I was looking for a place to buy and a couple of weeks later they told me they were selling. That was in 1987”.
Over the past 33 years, Süha’s home has witnessed many changes. Yet the rocks which form and surround it, rippling and folding like rivulets of royal icing, have swayed not an inch. Their colours, layering quiet yellow on pale green on soft red, form the natural beauty of Cappadocia’s landscape. When overcast, the vista tends towards beige, yet when the sun burns from above the rocks glow like they are lit from within. If you look closely a stretch of stone reveals the handsome grain of an oak tree – full of striations and knots and veins. Dark holes loom in the rocks; upon a scramble to gain entrance (free of charge), there is a cave church decorated by faded frescoes and red outlined square crosses. Apart from the scratched faces blinding these biblical figures and the remains of a campfire, the churches and their secluded views have remained unchanged for centuries.
However, whilst the churches are locked in the past, much else in Cappadocia has cantered ahead to meet the demands of the 21st century. Sleepy towns have erupted like the volcanoes which created this intriguing landscape. Hotels by the score have sprung up – or rather inwards, scooped out of the rock. With names like Ottoman Cave Suites, Hidden Cave Hotel and Mystic Cave Hotel, this is a place that promises mystery, seclusion and a flavour of the orient.
The reality is somewhat different. On a short walk through the main town of Goreme you will encounter English, Russian and Mandarin signs, and restaurants promising Chinese food (including noodles, dumplings and duck). Tourist tat shops abound – selling lamp covers, bags, bracelets, leather goods, soapstone carvings and post cards. And the advertisements strewn on boards around town? ATV tours, horse riding and Cappadocia’s most famous export: the Instagram-worthy hot air balloon ride. The sky, unbroken but for stars and birds for millennia, is now pock-marked by balloons soaring high to catch the rising sun. Strangely, I saw not a single balloon during my five days in Cappadocia and my own attempts to join the absent throng and catch the sunrise from hundreds of metres up were thwarted by a mild breeze. Instead, I made do watching the sun crest the horizon from the patio of one of Süha’s cave houses, the chatter of birds mixed with the occasional rumble of a quad bike.
In many ways, Süha has been a victim of his own success. He opened his first cave hotel in 1990 – “the first in all of Cappadocia” he tells me. He has come out top in a grand game of Monopoly – owning sixteen houses, all adjacent, to form his own enclave. He bought damp and dilapidated properties and lovingly restored them. They are finished simply, but are all the better for it: the beauty of the stone is better than any wallpaper or painting. Although Süha has benefited from the influx of tourism, he tells me much of what he loved about Cappadocia has also been lost. Its peace is shattered by roaring quad bikes. The roads are jammed with coaches. The sights are filled with tourists. And blocky concrete apartments, rising like boils from the flat plain, have intruded upon the previous simple harmony between settlement and stone.
Süha now cycles to remote valleys far from the tourist trail to rediscover some of that peace and beauty which has been lost from his original sanctuary. For me too, that was where Cappadocia’s magic lay, far from the dubious promises of the cave hotels. It is not an epic landscape – there are no soaring mountains, breathtaking lakes or rocks littered with colour like a child’s scattered crayon set. Instead its attraction lies in getting lost in a network of valleys, each seemingly cut off, and yet with enough persistence and willingness to scramble each bridgehead can be breeched and you can scamper down into a further valley, which might have a church, a phallic-shaped stone protrusion, or quiet orange juice stall. It is the prospect of adventure and discovery which made Cappadocia so enjoyable for me; the opportunity to get immersed in a tiny corner so completely it feels like you have discovered a new world.
And thus I feel Cappadocia is not a place to see, but one to experience. To enjoy simply being there, rather than trying to “do” everything. On my final day, I decided to do a long run round all the major valleys of Cappadocia. I meandered, weaved and looped round, on my way to nowhere in particular. I saw churches tucked into holes, cattle shelters carved from rock and ran through tunnels carved out by once-powerful rivers that now trickled. For a stretch I was joined by a friendly Alsatian; the rest of the time I was alone. One thing was noticeable by its absence: tourists. I barely saw anyone that day, save for a group of quadbikers and a huddle of Turkish sightseers at a panoramic point. Despite Turkey’s best efforts to maintain revenue from tourism over the past year, it has had only limited success.
Before I caught the bus back to Ankara, I saw Süha once more. He told me how he sometimes shuts the curtains in the evening to block out the sight of the encroaching housing developments, retreating to his place of beauty: his own brittle bubble he has carved from the rock. But, for the next few months at least, Süha can enjoy tranquillity once again.
With Suha