Cappadocia with ISL

According to our tour guide, Cappadocia in Turkish means "land of beautiful horses" 

It is a region of Turkey in the heart of Anatolian side. It is a solid 8-10 hours bus ride from Istanbul. 

The Group!!!!

This past March, we took a group trip to Cappadocia with a "registered" student activity organization called Istanbul Student Life. They organize lots of parties, trips and events for Erasmus, exchange and local students. This trip in particular can be summarized as, long hours in bus, meeting many new people, countless "churches", rock formation chimneys, "cultural" nightlife, and a lifetime experience on a hot air balloon. 

Cappadocia from the Balloon

So, around 200 began our trip from Istanbul on a Thursday night with 5 chartered buses. The bus did have WiFi and some interesting mix of people. So the ride there was long but not as painful as imagined. 

Friday morning we reached Cappadocia. That section of the day was more like "go there, take the picture, enjoy the view and get back to the bus". We made few stops before lunch: 

Uchisar Castle(This place)

Pigeon valley

Captain Osman valley

Devrent valley

Etc.

We stopped for an open buffet lunch around 3:00pm and then headed towards our 5 star hotel ( or 3 out of 5 star as I like to call it). I was rooming with two other friends from Bahcesehir university. 

The evening was just normal. Since we were very tired, we decided to take a nap (I usually call them a short sleep as I actually fall deep I to sleep) we ended up waking up around 7 pm right on time for "open buffet dinner" at the hotel. I think buying drinking water is a tradition in Turkey, we had to put the 1 Lt. water on our tab. The event for the night was to go to Disco but me and my roomies decided to chill at the hotel and "maybe" join them later. Clearly, that did not happen as thy got back to the hotel even before we were ready to leave. Guilty of loudness and proud of some new connections, I went to sleep pretty late that night (morning)

Day 2

This day was a highlight of the trip. Not only because of the well planned portion of the trip but also because of last minute changes and short ride on bus. 

After having the "buffet" breakfast at the hotel we headed towards the place called "Goreme Open air museum" basically it was a preserved area with lots of caves and rock formations that are thought to have been used by people in the past for various reason but mainly Christianity worship. 

Before lunch we went to two places.

• A gem/stone factory/shop
• A pottery/terracotta factory/shop 

Both of them offered huge discounts to students.

After lunch, we did took the opportunity to take part in this activity which has been one of the highlights of my life so far. HOT AIR BALLOON OVER CAPPADOCIA.

The ballooning group before the flight

Our ballooning group after landing, with the captain 

After dinner, we went for "Turkish Night". It was an event of Turkish dances (including belly dance and whirling devises), music, and not to mention, unlimited alcohol (for those who like to drink) for 50TL. Overall the day was well spent.

Turkish Night

Day 3

Our last day in Cappadocia, we checked out of the hotel around 11AM and took the bus to few other places before heading back to Istanbul. Firstly we stopped at Derinkuyu Underground City, which is listed in the UNESCO World Heritage Site. Like its name, it has a completely different world underground. 

Then we drove to Ihlara Canyon where we also stopped for lunch. It was a cool place with a historical church on the top of the rocks. We enjoyed our time there as the weather was good.

After a long lunch break (many people did not get to eat) we started our journey back to Istanbul (at around 5 PM). On our way back, we stopped by Tuz Golu or Salt Lake in the middle of Anatolia. Apparently, the gift shops kept salt from the lake which would make your hands very soft if you apply them. After a short stop we resumed our drive. We reached Istanbul very late (like around 3 AM)

Special thanks to Steph Marvel and ISL for some of the pictures posted here