Silk Road Suzie: Another day in Goreme...........

Archie has been up to no good - so an extra day. This morning I went with one of the Australian couples with a guide to walk the extraordinary landscape I saw from the balloon. The place we were heading for is called the Rose Valley - not for the amount of roses that grow there but because of the rose coloured rock in the valley. All around the Rose Valley the rocks are buff coloured but the Rose Valley truly stands out because of the beautiful pink coloured rock so different from the surrounding landscape. It was an eyeopener to be walking in it rather than flying over it. The soil was very sandy (ground up pumice I suppose) and some of the cone shaped rocks had pigeon lofts carved into them. In fact it is not right to say that they are cone shaped, some are, but others are so phallic that I have been discussing this with one of my fellow travellers that they really look as if they have been deliberately shaped then erosion over the centuries has done the rest. This seems a reasonable surmise because if these phallic shaped rocks then have rooms or a dwelling or possibly a sacred space carved inside them then there is the male/female principle in one rock. Also what leads me to suggest this is that this whole area is obviously a very special area and could well be a sacred landscape. There are so many rock churches and certainly the whole area was of deep spiritual significance to the early Christians, who used to build their churches on previous sacred sites. So to me this seems to be a logical explanation of these very individual and strange shaped rocks. While in the Rose Valley we stopped to look at another rock church- this time with beautiful blue frescoes on the walls. Most unfortunately defaced but the face of Christ was still distinguishable as were some of the higher paintings. The walking was quite hard as a lot of ups and downs so when we got back to Goreme it was great to go to the Haman (Turkish baths) again. This time we got the star treatment. One of my fellow walkers (female) came with to the baths. When we got in there it was mixed - men and women - but half way through a wonderful soap sud massage I heard some talking and then there was a distinct change in the energy and I realised that there were only women in the baths - myself, my fellow companion and our bath attendants/masseuse. Apparently they had asked a male client to leave!!! So after a wonderfully relaxing Turkish bath we made our way back to the pension and now I am waiting to have my supper cooked for me by somebody else.

Goreme Landscapes