Cappadocia Day 1 - Exploring Mustafapaşa

Like most of the Cappadocia region, the village of Mustafapaşa used to depend for a living on agriculture, especially grape-growing.  However, these days it is increasingly depending on tourism for its living with new hotels opening all the time.  Small and large "cave" hotels are sprinkled throughout the village - many incorporating ancient and "newer" cave dwellings carved out of the hillsides.  Some caves are several thousand years old, and have been remodeled for habitation over the recent centuries and decades, and are now getting further remodeled into hotel rooms complete with internet wifi and modern hot water heating systems.

Before showing our Mustafapasa walk about, here's an overview of our Bed and Breakfast - Gibos Cave Hotel/BnB.

Here's a montage of views of Gibos BnB:

The hotel is an example of remodeling done to cave structures built by some of the original inhabitants of this village.  Our room is shown in photos "1, 2, and 3" below; the "4th" is another room.

Here are some caves from the distance past in the village, just adjacent to our hotel - caves that may or may not become hotels someday.

We now start our walk outward from the center of the village up to the bluffs.  Below is a restoration and remodeling just underway.  The friendly workers even invited us behind the fence for a closer look.

This old dwelling is still occupied, by Pontious Pooch of Mustafapasa (known in da hood as Big PPM).

Here's another cave hotel, with a more modern facade and the cave rooms tucked away back into the hillside.

Getting now to the bluffs over the village where work has been done to create an open-air museum - with partially completed parking, a gift shop mini-mall, and walking trails and steps to access old and/or ancient original structures.  It appeared to us that progress has been halted or delayed, but we proceeded.

Evidence of volcanic layering of rock and rockified ash:

The geology reminds us a lot of Moab, Utah.

Seen below, a potato field with a rocky cone, hollowed out as part of a monastery.  The cone in geology terms is a "hoodoo".  There are thousands of them in Cappadocia.

"A hoodoo (also called a tent rock, fairy chimney, or earth pyramid) is a tall, thin spire of rock formed by erosion. Hoodoos typically consist of relatively soft rock topped by harder, less easily eroded stone that protects each column from the elements. They generally form within sedimentary rock and volcanic rock formations.
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Hoodoos range in size from the height of an average human to heights exceeding a 10-story building. Hoodoo shapes are affected by the erosional patterns of alternating hard and softer rock layers. Minerals deposited within different rock types can cause hoodoos to have different colors throughout their height."

Climbing up steps, placed maybe in the last 5 years, to get the high view.

We learned from our guide book and the locals that in some cases the original structures were churches/monasteries, which fell out of use, only to be reoccupied by villagers.  Below is one such case, where little niches were carved to house pigeons.  The rolling rock door is evidence of the space being used to protect villagers from foreign intruders.

The skies are starting to look threatening...

A cow herd being shepherded to somewheres, maybe in advance of the approaching storm (we're hearing distant thunder now).

St. John the Baptist church - we saw it earlier close up - it could as easily be thought of as Keebler Elf Cookie Monastery.

Wondering if we should walk faster, the rumbles continue, but we don't see lightning.

Scenes of the planting season - tourism dominates, but farming still is hanging on.

Ted and Ed arriving just in time for a strategic photo bombing.  Or....maybe.....to speak with us about a great tempest hurling down upon us, they be the locals, we be the uninformed tourists.

Wazaa, it comes, drenching rains, some hail, some flooding, the power goes off and on for the next couple hours.  Some minor washouts on the roads and some cave rooms weeping have occurred.

We hang with the hotel owners, Adin and Hatice, waiting for the storm to pass.  We find out they are also retired engineers, who met during their college days.  They've lived in several spots around Turkey, after having been reared on the coast, but now live here with their dream BnB to look after.

​Adin and Hatice offered us stuffed egg plant for a dinner this evening - yum yum.

This particular  wine, although produced for regional commercial consumption, tasted a bit folksy or home made, if you know what we mean.

The lager beer, Efes, was more in alignment with our preferences - we had a few of them this afternoon with a couple good rounds of the Phase Ten cards.