Stewart left Wednesday night for Olympos to catchup a gullet for a blue cruise. Since he already had explored Goreme on his first day here, I thought it could be nice to explore a bit further. And renting scooters seemed the best way to get where we wanted.

After shopping around for prices and the types of scooters, we went with 2 Peugeot 60cc for 27YTL each for 4:30 hours.

The nice thing about the region is that there are not many cars and the roads are nice. Some of them even have a bike lane!

We spent some time planning a circular itinerary including places we wanted to see based on recommendation of the guide book and places we already had seen the day before but not long enough in our taste.

Riding was a lot of fun. I don’t know how fast we were going because my tachometer was broken but that was fast enough to feel the wind blow in my t-shirt and around my helmet. Yeah, still not riding with the wind in the hair but first, I don’t have enough hair to do that and second, I am getting too old for something that stupid ;). Anyway, it reminded me of last year in Peru when we were ridding motorbikes in the sacred valley; the kind of moments you never forget.

The best part of the day was when we went to explore an old cave city. Imagine a set of hills with valleys in between and tens of cave houses carved into the hills. It was very nice to walk around and explore the caves. In one of these, we found a dark tunnel leading to a steep staircase ending in another cave house on the other side of the mountain. Thankfully, we had flashlight because it was pitch black down there. Later, as we were exploring another set of cave houses, we noticed a hole in the ceiling of one of the room leading to another level. I climbed up to take a picture from there. It turned out to be challenging but I finally made it. I was thankfully for the hours I spent in the climbing gym practicing some moves! To make it more challenging, when I came back down, I realized I had forgotten the camera up there so I had to climb a second time!

Continuing our tour, we got to Ortahisar, another small town in Cappadocia with a natural citadel (i.e. a hill where a lot of caves have been carved). As we were leaving the town, it took a right that led us on a curvy paved road with a steep decline. Curvy, Slippery and steep, the perfect combination :). I was trying to go slow, breaking a lot to fight the gravity, so much so that the scooter ended up stalling several times. Not really the kind of ride I enjoy.

We got through it and got back to Goreme on time. Nothing bad except for the huge sunburns on the forearms and the neck.

That was enough excitement for the day so I spent the rest of it around the pool of the hotel.

It is actually what I have been doing most of the time in the last two days since Stewart has left. I am not feeling very courageous and it is very hot here. In the evenings, I have been back to the Flintstones bar with some of the folks here.