Our day started with a charming breakfast, tapas-style, provided by the family at the inn. The bread was heavenly: crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside, this bread reminded me of the loaves I devoured in France last year. I made sure to eat heartily, as I knew we had a busy day ahead of us.
The Mustafapasa village walk started in the cutest and fluffiest way: with local dogs vying for our attention. The tour guide informed us that street dogs and cats are collectively cared for by each city and village's human occupants, who can bring any ailing animal to the vet because the government will cover the costs. I was thrilled to be in a veritable petting zoo.
The village itself was charmingly rustic and picturesque in the way it rambled across the rolling hills. I was particularly enthralled by the colorful and intricate doors, which were all unique and had lots of personality.
With three of the morning's dogs following our every step, we then came across some local women selling hand-beaded necklaces. I eventually bought a feisty red and black one.
Back at the inn, one of the owner's sons was playing with the kittens and dropped one in my arms when he saw me cooing over them. I could have died from the cuteness overload!
We hopped on the bus to head towards Goreme Acikhava Muzesi, which is an open-air museum with caves and
paintings. Our tour guide informed us that Goreme National Park and the Rock Sites of Cappadocia are UNESCO World Heritage sites, which piqued my interest. According to the UNESCO website that I later researched, the "spectacular landscape, entirely sculpted by erosion...contain rock-hewn sanctuaries that provide unique
evidence of Byzantine art in the post-Iconoclastic period. Dwellings,
troglodyte villages and underground towns -- the remains of a traditional
human habitat dating back to the 4th century -- can also be seen there." I was amazed that people had lived inside these caves, and that some of the paintings were still there for us to see: in particular, "Cappadocian monasticism was already well established in the iconoclastic
period (725-842)" and "after 842 many rupestral churches were dug in
Cappadocia and richly decorated with brightly colored figurative
painting." Unfortunately, no pictures were allowed -- understandable, as flash destroys the pigment.
After walking up and down and in and out of the caves, I was so hungry that I was ready to eat my own finger. I was definitely ready for our next activity: lunch and a chat at a local village woman's house. We sat on a flat bench that encircled the circumference of a mid-sized room, and received glass plates of food that she had cooked. The stew and white beans were tasty; the tomatoes, from her garden, were perfectly red-ripe. I asked to take a picture with her and her 90-year-old mother, and they kindly agreed.
After lunch, I started to get excited for Mohamed because carpet-weaving was on the docket -- the man loves his textiles. The purveyor impressed me with his choreography of dramatically unfurling each carpet, which progressed quickly from the least complicated/expensive (wool kilims) to the most (silk). The blue one that I liked cost $26,000. Boy, these carpets made my Bella costumes look cheap!
With nary a carpet purchased, we headed back to the inn for a simple and yummy
dinner. I especially liked the stuffed zucchini, which I actually was prepared to dislike because I usually hate zucchini. The tour guide then announced that he had a small surprise for us, and it turned out to be live music performed by a taxi driver and
dairy farmer -- who, obviously, moonlight as musicians. Mohamed told them to get me up and dance, and when I hesitated I was pulled out of my chair by a bear hug. I escaped by doing a shimmy or two, which I think surprised folks because they started clapping. As more people were pulled up to dance, I could hear them say, "what do I do?" and "I don't know how to dance!" I decided to line them up behind me to do hip-ups, just like in my belly dancing shows. The tour guide urged the remaining people to get up, and everyone broke out into spontaneous dancing. Fun was had by all!
We were invited inside a local woman's house, where her son played with the family goat. Yes, this goat lives inside the home with them.
As we started looping back towards our starting point, we saw a woman and her three children with trays of scarves. Like the necklace-sellers, they were not pushy at all. Many of the tour members were curious to see what they were selling, though, and the woman was happy to oblige. The tour guide asked her to drape a scarf on me in the local style, and I suddenly had 27 cameras pointing at me -- one for each of the other tour members. I'm a total ham, though, so I happily posed for the pictures. I thought the little girl was adorable, and I was happy that my pink scarf matched her pink shirt. After all those pictures, I definitely bought the scarf.
