Back to the Stone Age
Ever wondered what it’d be like to live like the Flintstones? Well, there are no adult-sized pedal cars in Turkey’s Cappadocia region but you can check into a cave for the night!
FOR years, Istanbul businessman Mustafa Cankaya used to gaze in wonder at a cluster of 150 abandoned cave houses from his hotel balcony in Uchisar, in Turkey’s Cappadocia region, to which he was a frequent visitor.
Fascination turned into inspiration in 2004, prompting Cankaya to sink US$10mil (RM3.2mil) into his own cave hotel.
Halim Oz was a pioneer when he turned his cave home into the seven-room Village Cave Inn in sleepy little Cavusin village.A hundred workers and stone artisans turned several rubble-strewn holes in the ground into the region’s latest upscale hotel, Cappadocia Cave Resort and Spa (CCR), which opened last October.
Its 47 rooms are luxurious cocoons hewn from the rock or with extensions built with local stone. They are perched on the side of a cliff, giving commanding views of the glorious rose- and toffee-coloured valleys and honeycombed cliffs.
“Cappadocia has many hotels. But I realised we need luxurious hotels to cater to the many high end guests who are accustomed to this sort of lifestyle,” Cankaya explained during a tour of his property.
Picturesque view from the terraces of Anatolian Houses.Animal skin loincloths or hunting for food with clubs are not prerequisites for cave life in today’s Cappadocia! Troglodyte living is far from primitive when rates start from ?550 (RM2,794) a night in one of the several chic boutique hotels here. That’s the starting rate at CCR; its King Suite costs ?850 (RM4,317).
The sort of lifestyle Cankaya speaks about translates into spacious caverns with vaulted ceilings and elegant, baroque-styled furnishings of gold jacquard and scarlet velvet, marbled bathrooms, plasma TV and every modern gizmo that well-heeled travellers might require. CCR also boasts of the first cave spa.
“We could have had 120 standard rooms but we combined the spaces to create ensuite bathrooms,” explains CCR assistant general manager Didem Z. Bulgurlu.
The 19-room Anatolian Houses hotel set new standards for luxury when it opened in 2006 in the village of Goreme.“We employed Cappadocia’s best stone artisans. We were very sensitive to regulations on maintaining authentic cave house façades.
For example, we can’t extend the balconies for rooms but can only put up wooden pergolas to shade the terraces. The stones are fitted by hand and no concrete or heavy machinery was used.”
Another popular luxury cave hotel that has set new standards for Cappadocia is the Anatolian Houses overlooking Goreme village.
Owned by carpet seller Hasan Kalci, the hotel smartly incorporates lots of glass to balance the caves’ claustrophobic effect.
Ismail Kutlugun and his son Emira ( right) run the Typical Turkish House Inn. With an aqua swimming pool, hip poolside bar, cave restaurant and 19 rooms decorated with antiques that Kalci collects; it’s easy to see why the hotel is building an extension across the road.
The demand for cave hotels has risen in tandem with the steady increase in the number of visitors coming here; some two million are expected this year. The Hilton will be starting a property soon, the first development by one of the big hotel chains.
Traditional homes
Caves in Cappadocia have been natural homes for thousands of years. Ancient volcanic eruptions over millions of years covered the land with soft volcanic ash which hardened into a type of stone called tufa, which can be dug easily but remains hard as rock on the outside.
Since 4,000 years ago, people have dug out homes, sanctuaries and monasteries in the tall conical rocks they call fairy chimneys, and subterranean cities 10 storeys deep.
Above ground, caves were continually inhabited until the 1960s, when the risk of caves crumbling became a risk and the government built new apartments in the cities for the people.
Today, cave dwellings are permitted provided that they are also used for cultural or commercial purposes.
Terracotta lamps made by local potters cast a rustic light on the Village Cave Inn.But some Cappadocians were reluctant to move to the cities. One of them is Halim Oz, 47, who was inspired 10 years ago after seeing a 1919 National Geographic magazine featuring pictures of cave homes.
Oz pooled together his savings and income from his souvenir shops, and sold his car and apartment, to turn his family cave house into The Village Cave inn. It’s in Cavusin, a sleepy community tucked between the more frequented Goreme and Avanos villages.
“People called me crazy,” Oz says with a laugh, as he shows us the cavern he was born in.
“I was the first to start a hotel here. I must say it was scary when I started. There wasn’t a single light anywhere, only from the stars! It didn’t help that some of the villagers believed fairies haunted the caves.
“But I didn’t want to leave my home. Caves are good for solitude and I believe travellers want to experience the local lifestyle.”
A single cave complex can house several families. There was no electricity, heating or piped water. These had to be added for the comfort of tourists.
Oz’s request for stones from the cave complex opposite his home was rejected as it was part of a protected labyrinth of caves that includes one of Cappadocia’s oldest churches, which is dedicated to St John the Baptist.
Cappadocia Cave Resort and Spa boasts of the first cave spa in the region.Stones from nearby quarries were hauled back on donkeys. Caverns were painstakingly chiselled and smoothed by hand. Oz worked through seven long years to create his comfortable seven-room inn and hopes to open four more rooms.
“The drawback of caves is the high humidity level. I need several years to dry out a single cavern,” he explains.
Oz caters to mid-range travellers with rooms starting from ?60E to ?110 (RM304 to RM559), with breakfast. A night in a cave starts from US$25 (RM80) off-season such as in Ismail Kutlugun’s little two-room Typical Turkish House.
What’s magical here is the natural insulation, which results in complete silence in each chamber.
Like Oz, Kutlugun refused to leave his compound of cone houses in Uchisar that was home for four generations.
Kutlugun, 47, was able to reoccupy his cave home by converting two rooms for tourists and opening a souvenir shop and restaurant serving traditional Anatolian food.
As dusk covers Uchisar’s strange landscape in shadows, complete silence falls over the valley to create an incredible peace, which is reason enough to experience cave living!
Cappadocia Cave Resort and Spa, Tekelli mah. Goreme cad. No 1, Uchisar, Nevsehir. Tel no:
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