Day 096 Derinkuyu - Göreme

From Underground Yoga to Smurfland to Rock!
After a cold night (close to 0°) we drove into Derinkuyu to visit the famous underground city. There are many underground cities in cappadocia but this one is supposed to be the biggest (of the known ones). 8 stories of underground tunnels and caves, dwellings, meeting halls and churches which once were home to min. 3000 people. Noone really knows the age or initial purpose. Possible functions are a hideout against enemies or just a nicely tempered place to stay in hot summers and cold winters.
One thing is for sure: the people building and using it were much smaller than me - the walk through the tunnels felt a bit like some kind of Yoga exercise - most of the time my body was in very strange posture. But it was totally worth it. It is really a small city (including still working ventilation system, wells,...) and it is really underground - not in a mountain or something which you would enter from one side but in a relatively flat landscape where you enter from an unsuspecting stairway from above.
After spending about an hour underground we could appreciate sunlight and fresh air much more. We had a short look at a nearby armenien church now used as a gallery and set down for a tea. When we were finally getting started for todays ride some German tourists  approached us and couldn't quite believe our travel plans. After the short ride we arrived in the ' real cappadocia ' (i.e. the tourist-agency-leaflet cappadocia). When seeing it from above my first thought was: Welcome to Smurfland! Funny landscape. Very funny landscape. With houses in rock mushrooms and cones. I felt a huge desire to paint myself blue. Instead we settled with a simple shower (also not bad after some days on the road) after checking into a cave hostel. We gonna spend the night in a trve rock cave, because: "Jimi Hendrix slept here", yeah!!!

Day 095 Belisirma - Derinkuyu

My legs are so strong, they bend hëävÿ mëtäl !!!
Which isn't necessarily a good thing. At least if that heavy metal is a crucial part of your bicycle.
But also some good things happened today: I met not one but two other cyclists today!
But let me start at the beginning. When I was sitting at breakfast beside my over-the-water camping place a young guy walked by. After seeing my bike he introduced himself as Adrien from Switzerland. He had left his bicycle at another entrance of Ihlara valley. He started his trip about three months ago in switzerland and will also go to Iran and then turn to Central Asia. Of course we exchanged contact data and maybe we will cycle a bit together later.
When I got started I got about 2km far. On a steep hill out of the canyon my rear wheel suddenly blocked and the gear shift did not work anymore.
It looked like through my immense power on the pedal the rear wheel has slipped out of its bearing thereby bending the metal of a device that was supposed to keep the wheel in place and blasting one of my gear shifts bowden cables. Ugh! It took me a while until I had figured out how to repair it - and given my marginal bicycle knowledge I am pretty proud of the result. The bowden cable was not a big problem. The keeping-the-wheel-in-place-device however had become useless so I had to fix it with zip ties - it looks very adventurous but it worked perfectly today.
When I was just cleaning up from the repair another cyclist crossed my path: Michal from Poland on his way from North Cape to Cape Town.
He immediately stopped and offered to make coffee - this plus bread and sweets made a great second breakfast which was upgraded even more by grapes some bypassing women presented us with.
As we had more or less the same route we decided to cycle together for the rest of the day. It was great fun and Michal had many a story to share. We went up to a nice crater lake and ended up in Derinkuyu - the town boasting Cappadokias biggest underground city (even though we saw advertisement for some other biggest underground city on our way). We will have a look at it tomorrow.

Day 094 Aksaray - Belisirma

Finally I am in Cappadocia! And it already looks as if I will spend more time here than planned. Today I cycled to Ihlara valley - a deep canyon full of stone cut dwellings and churches. Entering the valley with a bicycle proved to be difficult - I tried twice: first from Selime then from Belisirma, right in the middle of the valley. Staff at the entrance in Belisirma were very friendly (in Selime not so much), they let me in with Arthur but wouldn't guarantee if I would make it through the valley. For the first km or do the path was ok but at some point it got to narrow and stony - I left Arthur locked at a tree and started exploring the churches on foot. Most of the millenium old churches and its frescoes are severely damaged - either by natural forces making the rock crumble, by iconoclasts particularly destroying  the faces in the frescoes or by travellers from 19th & 20th century scratching their names right into the frescoes. Nevertheless they are a sight not to be missed. I enjoyed the hike through the canyon so much that I nearly forgot about time - when I was back at my bike I had only 30 minutes left until sunset and I had to find a place to sleep quickly. Fortunately I could put up my tent at the entrance gate - on a wooden balcony right above the river. The shop owner renting out his balcony made barbecue for dinner and soon many men from the villages gathered around the fire.

Day 093 Kizören - Aksaray

Today the plain seemed even more plain than yesterdays plain which was already very plain. The headwind was also still there, but not as cold and nasty as yesterday. So, the ride was not particularly exciting but doable.
One plus factor was the Sultanhani caravanserai - the biggest caravanserai of Asia Minor, wow! It actually was really nice and provided a good reason for me to stop on the rather boring way (just as it did for centuries of caravans).
Another big plus factor was my couchsurfing host Cihan in Aksaray. After an already sumptuous dinner with him and his friend Deniz he gave me a deeper introduction to the secrets of a Turkish Pastanesi and we got some Sütlac (basically Milchreis, but much better), a bowl of something like chocolate pudding with some chocolate pieces hidden inside and sprinkled with more chocolate and pistachio baklava, hmmmmmm. Later I had my first try on Guitar Hero, yeah!

Day 092 Konya - Kizören

AAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRGGGGHHHHHH! What an annoying day!
No, not everything was bad: stomach problems are gone, I am able to cycle again and on my way out of Konya I even had some decent cycle paths.
But all the rest was an Zen-style exercise in patience and stoicism. The whole trip was along a very very straight street crossing a very very very plain plain - paired with a freaking nasty cold headwind. So everything looked more or less the same and I never really had the feeling that I would make any headway - not very motivating.
I put up my tent beside a gas station and tomorrow I will take on the second half of this huge plain plain.

Sick day 091 Konya

I spent the whole day in bed - recovering from stomach problems.