LEFT TOP • While browsing a market in Göreme, we found this carpet shop, with room after room of inventory stacked to the ceiling. The owner told us stories about the town, and we all ended up leaving with a carpet of our own. LEFT BOTTOM • The hammam in downtown Kayseri is 800 years old, and still uses the original heating system. Chad Sayers and Tof Henry enjoy a traditional bathing session. BELOW • Most tourists at Erciyes are either novice skiers or sledders, which makes for a lively base-area scene. All ability levels, however, can appreciate homemade potato chips (left), especially after a morning of ski lessons (right). On our way to Göreme, we stop at a particularly panoramic viewpoint. There are numerous ways to experience the park, including hiking, bicycling or by horseback, but the most exciting method of exploration is by air. Göreme is a hot spot for hot air ballooning, and on some days dozens of colorful orbs float and bob above the stony ridges and valleys. Our method, however, is via skis, and we prepare our gear for a tour in the bizarre terrain. Across the parking lot is a small market, lined with shops selling roasted nuts, oranges and apples. We fill up on freshly squeezed juice before start-ing off into the moonscape, hot air balloons floating above our heads. It’s hard not to be entranced by this surreal en-vironment, and easy to imagine the days when the winding caves and canyons housed whole cities. Later, as we walk through Göreme’s town square, we stop at a building completely covered by carpets—literally, as the entirety of both the outside and interior is obscured by color-ful fabric. Kayseri’s carpet industry has been renowned for centuries. We’re greeted by a middle-aged Turkish man, who forgoes his sales pitch and instead tells us about the town’s history. He talks about how donkeys once lived in some of the caves, dat-ing back to the height of the Silk Road thousands of years ago, to as recently as his grandparents’ days, before the boom of the local tourism industry. His own grandfather would travel around the world buying carpets, telling his grandson how each pattern had a unique story. We listen, fascinated, and after he finishes his tale we leave the building holding our own bundles of fabric—purchased at a special price, “just for us,” of course. It’s the best sales tactic we’ve ever heard. After tucking our newly acquired goods into the car, we enter a hand-carved cave painted entirely white, which serves as a restaurant offering traditional Turkish fare. The small fire-place gives the stone room a cozy feel, as dish after dish arrives in steaming clay pots. The stewed meat and vegetables leave us in a food-induced stupor, and we stumble to a nearby rooftop bar to drink local red wine and smoke apple-flavored shisha, a type of tobacco inhaled through a hookah. Between sips of wine and inhalations of the verdant smoke, we muse over the carpet salesman’s story while dreaming of tomorrow’s skiing. T he whirring of a preloaded espresso machine wakes us at 4:40 a.m. We’re headed back to Erciyes, looking for sunrise turns before the lifts start spinning. Depending on conditions, a bid for the summit may even be an option. A stiff dose of caffeine gets us to the car, and a half-hour later we’re climbing straight up, under an idle chairlift. The sun has yet to crest the horizon, and stars still dot the clear, predawn sky. The moon is bright enough to cast shadows, which slowly fade as the light burns from blue to gold to red. Southern winds have blown even more snow onto the slopes, and we bend with the shape of the mountain. Turkey 079
The Ski Journal Volume Eleven, Issue Four: Page 79
