We woke up at 4:30am, and Nadir and Belma were already up too to call us a cab and see us off. We left their home by around 5:15am and headed to Sabiha Göcken airport by cab (TL15).

We boarded the 7am Anadolu Jet flight and arrived an hour later at Kayseri Airport. I had arranged for an airport pickup and saw a man with a list of names including mine and we got on the van to head to Göreme to our respective hotels.

The journey took about an hour and when we finally arrived at Melek Cave Hotel, we saw no one and the place was dark. We tried to call out but no answer, until finally I called their phone and apparently woke someone up with the ringing.

Ali checked us in and after that told us what are the activities we could do around Cappadocia/Göreme. For that day, we decided to go on a chartered Red Tour on a taxi (chauffered by his brother Emre) for TL60 each. We also pre booked the next day's activities: hot air balloon ride (€110 at 5:30am) and the Green Tour (TL120 at 9:30am).

Then we had lunch at Firin Express: kadinbudu (Turkish meatballs with salad and yogurt), pide (Turkish pizza), Turkish apple tea and Turkish coffee before starting our Red Tour with Emre.

We saw Çavuśin Church, the beautiful Fairy Chimneys, the Camel, and the Father, Mother, Sister rock formations. The Fairy Chimneys requires a little hike up but the view was just worth it!

It was a 360 degrees view of Cappadocia - a "geographical oddity" of nature's amazing formations made from ancient volcanic ash.

Emre also brought us to a pottery place and we saw their works of art there, which were also for sale.

Then we went to the Göreme Open Air Museum, which has many refectory monastries, each associated with a (rock-cut) church, dating back from the 10th, 11th and 12th centuries. A UNESCO World Heritage Site.

After that we went back to the hotel and went back out to check out the Göreme town before dark. We walked into a masjid, curious to see if I could do my solah there. We couldn't find the female ablution area but coincidentally they were having some sort of function and were eating; and when a bunch of men saw us, they gave us each a box of pide (pizza) and yogurt drink. Alhamdulillah! Dinner was sorted.

At night, we hung around at the hotel's "lobby"/living room (it is a family-run business so they live there too) to charge our devices and get online (wifi was weaker in the room + it was much warmer there). The mother even served me chai (tea) as I was sitting there minding my own business!

I finally retired to bed around 9:30pm (though it felt very late because sundown was at 4:30pm and we had an early start to the day).