These churches were a popular sanctuary in the 17th century. The roads are all original cobblestone which were charming but not so good for comfortable walking. I can’t say enough how much I loved my new Keens! The chapels were again amazing; just to contemplate how they constructed these churches out of the rock and how they painted, again, so many frescos that have withstood the forces of nature for hundreds of years.
After hiking through the Open Air Museum for a couple of hours both Abigail and my ankles had had enough. We gave it quite a bit of thought and decided it would be best for us if we headed back to the cave house for a rest. We enjoyed a really good Turkish lunch with some people in our tour group and then Abby and I took a cab back. I think it was the right move as she took a five hour nap. By the time Dano and the kids returned, my elephantitis had subsided and my feet fit back in my shoes.However, with our compromise we missed out on quite a few neat sites. After lunch the group went hiking through some cool valleys. One was Pigeon Valley. Here the natives carved thousands of houses in the rocks for pigeons. Imagine wanting to attract pigeons! The people provided this shelter in order to collect the birds’ feces which they had realized was wonderful fertilizer.
They also hiked through Devrent Valley made up of volcanic stones which appear to be stacked and balanced on each other. Many of them seemed to form animal shapes.
They also saw many examples of the most distinctive geological feature of Cappadocia which are called Fairy Chimneys. This is an odd name, yet perfectly suited for the stone formations throughout this region. These unique structures were formed by three phases of natural processes. First, volcanic ash filled the valleys of Cappadocia from the three major volcanoes and many active craters in the region. The volcanoes then deposited harder stone on top of the ash. Much of the harder stone was basalt. The next process was many years of pressure turning the ash into a soft stone. Lastly, wind and water did what it does and eroded the softer stone where it was not protected by harder stone on the top layer. This process left these great Fairy Chimneys. The soft stone formed by the compressed ash is also what allowed thousands of years of civilization to carve homes, churches, pigeon houses, and even our hotel. 
From there they headed back to Avanos where we had toured the ceramic shop. This time they were able to tour a weaving shop. Turkey is known for their amazingly beautiful rugs. At this particular workshop they had seventeen thousand rugs. Here the kids were given an opportunity to help tie knots in a rug-in-the-making. They each loved this. The ornate rugs the kids helped with will eventually be approximately 2 feet by 3 feet and will take these women up to six months to weave them, explaining the significant cost of rugs.
They were also shown how they harvested the silk from the silk worms and spun it into yarn.
They told the kids that they are able to harvest about a mile of thread from each worm. Many of the rugs are made from silk and are soft and have a beautiful sheen. They also make rugs from wool and cotton. While we were out we saw many of these ice cream peddlers. Dano and the kids decided to give Turkish ice cream a try. You can tell by the facial expressions that the peddler was hilarious. He teased the kids unmercifully. Ethan told me he almost dumped the ice cream on his head. They all loved the ice cream. It was the first time they had tasted ice cream made with camel milk.
That evening we walked a little ways from our hotel to a restaurant and enjoyed a really fun dinner together. The evenings were quite mild (though not mild enough to cool off our cave room) and the air was clean and refreshing. We felt so blessed to be able to spend time together in a wonderful little part of Turkey.
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