Goreme cave churches (in Kapadokya)

Today we walked down a steep road to the Goreme open air museum of cave churches and chapels mostly from the 11th and 12th centuries A.D.   This museum protects churches with the best preserved murals and paintings.  Crowded with lots of tourists, many arriving en masse in tour buses.  Nevertheless we managed a good look.

Later the whole group bussed to the town of Urgut (where our hotel is) for a lesson on rugs and shopping.

We learned that the mother of our CG manager lives in a cave house nearby.  In fact in the winter he goes there and works on it.  The CG is closed in winter--cold and some snow.  Wonder how they get water and electricity???

Tomorrow we will wait for a call from this manager (Yassar) to tell us about our RV.  The clutch parts had to be ordered from European Ford in Istanbul, flown to Ankara, and then put on a 6-hr bus ride to Nevsehir (big town about 25 km from Orgut).  They were to arrive about 6 p.m. today and the garage promised to work all night if necessary to have the RV ready tomorrow.  We'll see.  If it is ready early enough, we will be able to do tomorrow's travel to the Aegean coast with the group.  If not, we have Plan B to leave late tomorrow or Friday, to shortcut diagonally across, skip tomorrow night's caravan CG, and rejoin the group on Friday at the scheduled CG.      Bon voyage!