Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Cappadocia and Fairy Chimneys

    posted by Aunty Cindy aka Loucinda McGary

    Since we are all recovering from our Irish blow out that lasted the past few days, Aunty thought she'd relax and share a few last pictures of her jaunt to Turkey.

    One of the areas that we found the most fascinating was the region in central Turkey called Cappadocia. I've already talked a bit about this area between two long extinct volcanoes in my post about the underground cities.

    But another really unique aspect of Cappadocia is something they call "Fairy Chimneys." The soft layers of rock called tufa, were covered by much harder layers of stone.

    Through the process of erosion (mostly by the wind) unique formations resulted. Columns of the softer, lighter colored rock were topped by darker layers of harder rock. These gigantic formations sometimes look like mushrooms.

    Sometimes, as you can see happening in this photo on the right, the column under the harder layer of rock disolves completely, and the top falls off!

    Sometimes, like with the underground cities, people carve out storage rooms or dove cotes in the columns of softer rock.

    At one location where several of the rock columns were close together like this, the carved rooms were actually used as a police station!

    This was such a fascinating place and went on for many many miles! It took our guided tour the better part of two days to drive through Cappadocia, and that was only because we didn't stop for photos the second day.

    Everyone in the Lair knows how much yer olde Aunty loves to travel. And I have been to some very wonderful places and seen some amazing sights. But the Fairy Chimneys in Cappadocia were truly unique! I almost felt like I was on another planet. I wouldn't have been a bit surprised to go into one of those hollowed out columns and find myself in an interplanetary bar like the one in Star Wars!

    What about you? Have you ever been someplace that felt like it could have been on another planet? Or what kind of creatures do you envision living in these Fairy Chimneys? Does Aunty need to trade in her crop for a blaster?

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