Today is our earliest start as we have 700km to travel to Cappadocia where we are staying in a cave hotel. Luckily we stopped every two hours for a break. We travelled along The Silk Road where people had travelled to sell their goods in the past. Caravanserai were inns set up approximately every 40 km so that the traders could spend a night, rest their animals eat before setting off again. They would usually travel about 500 km from their home to sell their wares and then return back along the same route.
Our next stop was enforced as our bus which was a brand new one broke down on the side of the road. Consequently we didn't arrive at our cave hotel until it was dark. We could see the lights twinkling on the sides of the hills as we drove into the village and the hillside were lit up by lightning. We had to walk the last few hundred metres as the streets are too narrow for the bus. We have an enormous room carved out a cave with all modern facilities. The hotel is spread out along the side of a hill. We are in a little village Avyah north of Cappadocia which doesn't have any other facilities. The nearest town is Urgup which is about 15 minute bus ride away. We spent our first full day in Cappadocia visiting the Goreme Valley with all the churches built into the caves. People no longer live in the caves, most of them are turned into hotels or just abandoned.
We also went to Kaymaki underground city where the people used to hide if invaders came. You had to bend double to walk along the paths but you could see where they had their kitchens and storages spaces. There were lots of photo stop opportunities during the day with different views of the pinnacles. Once again there were large crowds, we started early so managed to avoid the worst of it.