Today we walked along another valley – the Zemi valley. It starts just out of town and the Lonely Planet Guide said that it is full of interesting rock formations and that it is also called Love Valley. The mind boggled. A pleasant stroll down a dirt road between, for this area, unexceptional cliffs, led us to a signpost to the El Nazar Church. This little church was locked, with a ticket required to enter it. The ticket office was in a cave further along, and contained a bed, basic cooking items and a small fire, which was burning fiercely despite the temperature outside being about 35 degrees with a warm breeze blowing up the sand. The man gathered his keys and unlocked the church for us, staying while we looked around.
The people in the frescoes were unusual; all with long thin faces and simple beards and hairstyles represented by formulaic straight lines. The colours were pale compared to the brilliant colours in other churches, and there was no individualism depicted. 
I forgot to mention that when we were in the Göreme Open Air Museum in the Dark Church, there was a gorgeous series of pictures depicting the birth of Jesus. The first showed a heavily pregnant Mary in the stable and the artist had had fun painting a long suffering Joseph, lying in a corner with an expression on his face that said, “How much longer and then what?” It was a pity that there was no information at all, since the differences must have had some significance.We continued on along a very pleasant agricultural valley, walking in the creek bed in most places, and wondering why there were virtually no signs of habitation in the cliffs. Keith’s theory was that flooding would be a problem, but looking at the trickle at our feet, it was hard to imagine. At one spot, however, a few metres up on the cliff, there was a man-made hole, so I climbed up to investigate. It was a large cistern full of water, which would be filled either by water within the cliffs or when the valley flooded.
The path was generally heading uphill and eventually left the creek and provided massive vertical challenges for me but a breezy uphill stroll for Keith. After a little while I was not feeling so well so we stopped in a rare shaded spot and rested. The rest of the walk was like the first part. We came to another sign saying ‘Churches’ but, when we followed it, it turned out to mean “No churches but a track up to the road.” The dirt road back to Göreme had panoramic views of the valleys, some of which did have spectacular rock formations, and of the four villages in the immediate vicinity. It followed a high ridge before it dropped down into Göreme, coming in to an area of rock hotels and villagers’ homes.After 4 hours of walking in the heat, we lay down in our cave to cool off and have a nap. Revived, we organised bus tickets for the ten hour trip to Antakya the next day and Keith set off to walk the real Love Valley, but he got lost and walked along a valley with very little of interest to see.
Meanwhile I went shopping – there were many shops for tourists and while they contained a plethora of cheap souvenirs, I had not had a chance to look at the beautiful embroidered items; lace and hand crafts of the area. I resisted the urge to buy a heavy bronze whirling dervish, but I purchased a second long sleeved top so as not to burn on these hot 30˚+ days. It was interesting to discover the difference in shopping alone to going into shops together. I had more offers of drinks, interesting conversations and browsed for much longer. Suddenly it was getting dark and, since I had the key, I hurried back to the hotel to see if Keith had returned. We met on the road and went to have a long longed for milk shake (6 lira, so one between us), while catching up with Lewis at the shop. He is very pleasant company. We have met Tony twice in Göreme; not planned, but a pleasure each time. Casual friendships with travellers are so relaxing and enjoyable because of the ease of language and the great interest we have in each others’ adventures.
More views around the amazing Göreme village.
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