As I suffer from vertigo I didn’t go on any hot-air balloon flight over that fairy region, yet I admit, it must be a unique and fantastic adventure. I embarked on my own adventure, instead.
The hotel was in the middle of nowhere, so I took a taxi and got off at the Nevsehir city’s forum shopping center. This was nice with restaurants, a hypermarket and many stores but much farther from the city center than I had expected it to be. I did some window-shopping and fell in love with two pairs of ear-rings. When I was going to pay, the shop assistant did not accept foreign currency but Turkish lire, only. I had not even one coin of the local currency. Speaking in hand signs – very very few locals speak a foreign language – I was taken to a gold store that for my surprise did the currency exchange, without issuing any document, without asking my passport…. Later I realized that whenever I needed to exchange money, I had to step into a gold store…
After enjoying a glass of orange juice, I left the forum and started walking in search of the center of the city. I had no city map but I never thought this would be a problem as surely there would be signs. I was wrong. I walked and walked until my sense of orientation told me I might be taking the wrong direction. The very few people I saw on the way, none of them spoke a word of English, French or German. I noticed that some of them were carrying bread in their hands. This made me wonder whether a bakery or a market might exist nearby. Again, my eyes told me I was somewhere out the center..
I continued wandering up and down the streets, looking for any sign of urban life. I started feeling a bit confused but never discouraged to give up finding the heart of the city. In the meantime, I had been taking pictures of whatever caught my eye. The young boy with big bread in his hands was so smiley and friendly but he didn’t speak a lick of English. Children were playing as it used to be in our old past… with very simple things!
My intuition guided me towards a busy street…Eureka! I had been keeping a clear mental map in my head of where I was in relation to the forum… Later, I thought, I could walk back there and take a taxi to return to the hotel.
The city center was very interesting, yet it looked very poor at my eyes… people were rushing in and out of the enumerable stores, and the local bazaar was like a colorful and smelly patchwork. I took a moment to visit the flowers’ market staged at a square. Turkish people love flowers and you can see beautiful roses and tulips, mainly, at every corner of their gardens. Very often they grow in big tins that had been formerly filled with cooking oil.
The main square was decorated with a big clock tower. It read ‘Cappadocia lives in Peace’. This sentence made sense to me. I had been told before that the city was inhabited by people of various religions who live together in harmony.
I started feeling hungry but I could not see any place where I would like to sit for a while and eat something until I found a friendly face sticking out from a window in the side of a very old house. Again speaking in hand-signs, I understood there was some place nearby. I got into a small bakery/pastry store and pointed out at a piece of a not so small half bread/half cake. The shop assistant kindly led me to an acceptable small room where I had rest as I enjoyed a coke and the piece of local pastry. Not bad…
I went on wandering and wandering through all those narrow and crowded streets. I saw most of the women wearing headscarves (hijab). Turkish women have a unique and lovely way to cover their hair with colorful, shiny silk scarves draped modestly around their heads. Not many but very few were wearing face covering cloth. Taking photos at them was not an easy task whereas younger people sometimes asked to pose for my camera.
There were not many cyber cafés but I could find one. For my curiosity, I tried to check my email box but I was unsuccessful. Why? I have no idea. Perhaps because of the keyboard… there were two different keys for the ‘i’, for instance.
Late in the afternoon, I started walking back to the Forum, where I stopped for a light snack at a terrace café, prior to taking a taxi back to the hotel. Oh, the terrace was full of Turkish young people… all of them looked so different from those I had seen in the city…. Why that? I have no idea…
Back in my hotel room I withdrew a conclusion: I had arrogantly assumed I would simply locate an English speaker for directions…but what happens when there isn't’t a single soul in sight who speaks a common language?
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