Yeraltında bir şehri, İhlara Vadisi'nde dolaşmaları, ve çok tuzlu bir göl

Although the citadel and churches carved out of the cliff faces were fully impressive in their own right, our first stop on the second day put them firmly in the back of my mind for a solid hour. The Kaymaklı Underground City is pretty well captured in its name, an extensive series of underground churches, wine cellars, and living areas connected by tunnels carved out of the same soft volcanic stone that ennabled the previous days structures to be built. What was remarkable about these rooms, though, was that they were not just a series of holes dug just beneath the surface, but at times (as we were told by our guide) went as far as five stories underground! I couldn't tell exactly how far down we were, but I know at one point early in our descent we came across an air shaft that went down as far as we could see and had some very cold air rushing up from the bottom. After our previous day of hiking around the rocks in the hot sun I could have stayed in the naturally cool underground city for hours. Unfortunately, this was another one of our guided tours and we felt a bit rushed as we went from room to room bypassing a number of side rooms and other passages. They might have been worried about misplacing one of us down there since we have some pretty adventurous students on the trip and the cell reception isn't the best in an underground rock city.

After this part of the tour ended we piled back on the bus and headed to our next stop, a hike through the Ihlara Valley. Although it has pretty stiff competition, this might have been my favorite part of the weekend. The Ihlara valley is another national park area that features a wooded area with a small river running through the middle and a number of hiking paths leading to more Byzantine churches carved out of the stone cliffs. It's basically like a number of areas in Northern California but with the addition of centuries old Byzantine churches and biblical frescoes. Possibly what made this the best part of the trip was that, after feeling rushed through several of the previous parts of the trip, I was able to break off from the group with a few like-minded friends and thoroughly explore every church and side-trail that we came across. The frescoes were amazing and still featured brightly-colored renditions of Jesus and other biblical figures around their walls and the domes carved into the interior of the mountainsides. Once we reached the end of the trail we were treated to lunch at a little cafe that was built on a series of platforms in the middle of the river (well, stream really). Though the food wasn't quite up to the standard set by the rest of Turkish cuisine, I guess you can get away with more when you have such a beautiful setting to serve it in.

After two days of activity and a sizeable lunch, a number of us were almost asleep before we even got back on the bus for the trip back. However, there was one more quick stop on the way back to Ankara, the Tuz Gölü, or Salt Lake. I don't know what it is about breakaway religious groups and salt lakes, but it appears they go hand in hand around the world. This was my first experience wading into one, though, and I think I'm ready to leave it at one. The lake is basically just regular water sitting on a bunch of broken up salt. It's like wading into a lake built on sharp broken rocks that then sting your wounds. That's maybe a bit dramatic since it never actually broke skin, but the effect was not a comfortable one. The sight of the white salt floor with the clear water was beautiful and made for some great pictures, but I was still ready to get back in the bus and make my way back to Ankara after a few minutes. Overall, the weekend was a lot of fun and featured a variety of different activities that in hindsight feel like they had to have taken place over several weekends. Now we are heading into our penultimate week of classes and getting ready for our next big weekend trip to Konya to visit the tomb of Mevlana Jelaleddin Rumi, the famous Sufi and founder of the Mevlevi order. It promises to be another great trip and a strong end to the program.