We have been hanging around the campground near Goreme for the past few days basically taking it easy, enjoying the sun and the morning ballloon display. It really is a peaceful place at this time of year. Any way today we organized with the campground host to do an afternoon tour of the area and in particular to visit the underground city, Kaymakli.

The morning was really misty with very limited visibility and we saw (not surprisingly) no balloons flying this morning, so we simply busied ourselves around camp until noon when our tour was to start and when thankfully the mist started to lift.

The Kaymakli underground complex (one of a number of underground cities in the region) is difficult to describe and difficult to comprehend. This one has 8 levels of caves, chambers and connecting tunnels of which 4 levels are open for visitors to explore. We clambered around inside this warren marveling that 2000 people once lived here and stayed underground for up to 6 months at a time. If travel highlights one thing it is that human beings are amazing and perpetually surprising. The question we did not get an answer to is "what did they do for toilets and other waste".

After the city we visited a few more local scenic spots and watched a flock of pigeons that depended for their food on the tourist trade and some balancing rocks and hey another church carved out of one of the stone towers that are everywhere.