We had left Istanbul’s sprawling suburbs behind us hopping from car to truck and escaping the concrete maze of highways and noise had taken the better part of the day. The wet green landscape of northern Anatolia surrounded the highway, and as we were about to walk off the road towards a lake to pitch our tent a large red truck screeched its way to a halt right in front of us, even though we hadn’t stuck out our thumbs.. A small excited man jumped down from the cabin beckoning at us. We asked where he was headed.
“Iraq” he shouted happily.
“But we’re going to Trabzon,” we replied.
“That’s fine, it’s on the way, I can get you closer.”
His confidence almost made us believe him. He would be driving towards Ankara, then onwards to Adana and along the southern border to Mardin and finally into Iraq to Erbil.
That was an entirely opposite route to ours.
“Ok then,” we agreed sheepishly.
Bilal is a happy Arab from Mardin who spends most of his life shipping clothes between Turkey and Iraq. He told us he picked us up because it was what a good Muslim should do and he needed to do a good deed that day. Broken conversation and Arab music intertwined, and as we passed Ankara we kept going south. We were on the way to Cappadocia. It would make for an unexpected first leg of our journey and our plans were already changing as I rerouted itineraries in the map in my head. The cold Black Sea could wait.

Cappadocia is one of Turkey’s most famous destinations thanks to its unique geographical landscape of fairy-chimneys and caves which have been inhabited for thousands of years, making the region a must-see destination for travellers in the country.
We left Bilal asleep in his truck at 4am half way between Ankara and Adana and got picked up by a colleague who was going in the opposite direction. We managed to convince him to take a longer, and much steeper route east into the heart of Cappadocia. He soon regretted it. By the time we reached Cappadocia it was late morning and we still hadn’t slept. We arrived by a small road which wound itself along a verdant valley dotted here and there with a few old tiny Greek villages of mostly abandoned cave houses, now used as barns and stables by local shepherds.

We were left to hike up to the plateau, as the lunar landscape of fairy chimneys opened up ahead. A short man in his Ford Tourneo pulled up and picked us up. He was going to the Saturday morning market in Urgup, the largest town and one of the main tourist destinations.

We freshened up as we had breakfast in a small lokanta, eggs, cheese, salad and tea. The usual Turkish meal. Looking forward to dive into one of the valleys we checked our pockets to pay.

One of our passports is gone.

Frantically and sleep-deprived we retraced our steps in town, back and forth. Nothing. Day two and already it looked as though it may be the last.

Too tired to even get upset, we hiked along one of the many wadis (valleys) which carve deep into the soft terrain, surrounded by a freakishly surreal landscape of rock pillars and domes. We pitched our tent for the first time in a small clearing within a circle of fallic-shaped rocks. Our minds blank and exhausted, we sat back and slept.

The following morning rain began to pour the moment we packed the tent away. Was there any point staying out in the open? No. We could go straight to Ankara and see if the embassy could issue a replacement on the spot.

Or we could make the most of the bad weather and try and hitch-hike back to the villages we had come from through a longer, and more well-used, route. A family with two young children eager to practise English took us most of the way as they drove to a cemetery to pay respects to old relatives. Here, we left the main road and hoped someone would take us back to the villages.
As we waited in the pouring rain two old men in a battered, rusty car eventually stopped, surprised to see two backpackers shivering in the cold along a road only used by shepherds and farmers. It was the same road we had arrived from the previous day. We explained the situation and for the following hour we were escorted to every village looking for a Ford Tourneo. We were finally admitted to the mayor’s office in the town of Derbentbasi.

The men from the village gathered at the mayor’s office, smoking cigarettes, drinking tea and discussing politics and sport and generally doing little work. All of them wore chequered shirts, jeans, leather boots and thick black moustaches. They laughed at my Turkish but welcomed us warmly. Someone knew a man from the neighbouring village of Başköy who matched our description. Phone calls were made, passport was confirmed found and we let out a massive sigh of relief. More tea was brought out and cigarettes were passed around as we waited for the mayor of the neighbouring town to drive over with the passport. Once he arrived he asked us, in return, to visit his village. The rain had stopped by then and we were happy to oblige.

As we passed once again through Başköy, the mayor pointed out the ruins of a 6th-century monastery on the cliff to our right which he claimed was dedicated to St. George; The saint apparently hailed from that very village (or his father at least). We were first led to the town hall where the mayor showed us a collection of century-old photographs of the town when the population had been Greek. Ancient Greek stone houses were now totally abandoned, some housing cows or piling manure, others looking pitiful compared to the ancient photographs depicting them in their hey-day.

I asked whether the descendants of the Greek families ever came to visit: only a few come from Greece but don’t stay long and there is not much for them to do once they arrive. We were left to walk around and we could easily enter any of the older buildings, many dating as far back as the 7th century, now crumbling to dust as no one has the resources to restore them and revive their original charms. The ancient Greek town hall had probably been one of the most impressive edifices and still managed, in its ruinous state, to suggest some of its former glorious appearance.

Unfortunately for Başköy and the neighbouring towns the thousands of tourists that visit Cappadocia don’t make it this far south. Since they are located on the fringes of the region these villages only receive a handful of visitors. Life is predominantly rural and based on the land as every inch of the valley between the towering cliffs is cultivated.

The cliffs around the town looked like Swiss cheese, punctured by thousands of caves of all sizes, some of which had evidently been lived in for long periods of time, the size of small apartments with multiple rooms.

We were told to walk back to Derbentbasi along the wadi, one of the deepest and most spectacular in the region. We were hit by a violent hail storm and our friends at the town hall arranged to pick us up in a car. The men were again all seated together, watching us intently, puzzled by our presence and our travelling plans, but evidently amused. And yet, it took only a handful of minutes and a few exchanged words and looks to make us feel welcome, as though we had been expected and nothing could be more normal than our presence. The stone-hard faces of these men, carved by the harsh living conditions of some of the poorest areas of rural Turkey, melted away in the care and kindness with which they welcomed us, poured tea and nodded approvingly at our patchy conversation.