Am I just naïve, or are standards of food sanitation in restaurants pretty lax everywhere? I’ve already mentioned that Ibrahim, master of the woodfire stove, keeps a cigarette going throughout the food prep process (leading to what Bob has deemed “ the apparently endless danger of cigarette ashes in all fabrics and comestibles”), but that’s definitely not the only biohazard putting Turkey's restaurant patrons in danger. The other day while cutting up an apple in the hotel kitchen I accidentally sliced open my finger, one of those shallow cuts that immediately bloomed bright red. Fortunately, the apple absorbed most of the blood (yum!), and none of it got on the counter, but Mehmet, the kitchen assistant, who was watching, didn't even bat an eyelash. Blood in the kitchen, and no one cared. And not once when I've gone in there has anyone ever asked me to wash my hands or even tie back my hair. Though the chefs all do wear impeccably washed and pressed whites, to show off what clean, sanitary cooks they all are.

This is me cooking "Turkish" food in the hotel kitchen...adding flour to hot oil to make a thickener for the soup. (Isn't that a French thing? Roux?) Anyway, you'll not that the only thing holding my hair back is my sunglasses...I look like I just wandered in off the street.

Actually, the major hazard to food sanitation at the hotel is probably the horde of wild animals roaming around all the time. Goreme is home to I think hundreds of stray dogs and cats, which wander in and out of stores, restaurants and private residences with the entitlement of a very overindulged population. Unal says, “They belong to no one but are cared for by everyone.” There are a couple of regulars at the hotel, two cats who‘ve been stopping by for a morning snack for as long as any of the current employees have been working there. These cats are smart; they always show up before 11, when the breakfast buffet ends, and are treated to eggs, French toast, and thick grape syrup. It turns out, by the way, that feral Turkish cats love egg whites but spurn the yolks—no wonder they’ve been around for so long, they must have excellent heart health. Anyway, though, these cats pose a real problem later in the day when Mustafa puts out the daily special (usually something involving puff pastry and béchamel sauce, and always displayed on a low table near the entrance to the kitchen). Yesterday there was a candle burning next to the special, a trick that supposedly keeps the cats from nibbling on it, but by the end of the night there were still some suspicious, feline paw prints around the plate’s rim. Those darn cats!

This is Ozlem (who now comes to the pool every day and is basically part girl, part fish) and one of the many stray puppies that hang around the hotel. It's a pretty terrible picture of both of them--I swear they're both much cuter in real life.

Oh! I finally went on the sunrise hot-air balloon ride! Sooooo cool. At 5am 12 of us crammed into the Butterfly Balloons van, which took about eight minutes to maneuver itself out of the admittedly cramped and somewhat perilously positioned (as in, carved into a cliff) parking lot and then…drove us about 200 feet to the building just at the bottom of the hill. While we breakfasted on chocolate cookies and grapes, the Butterfly Balloon guys were out with their little black weather balloons, testing the wind currents in order to figure out the best take-off point for a scenic flight. (Balloon pilots can shift the balloon up and down, but they have no control over the direction it flies other than to position themselves in the varying air currents at different altitudes, which change from day to day and I imagine make the daily life of a balloon pilot a constantly exciting adventure. Actually, probably what makes the life of a balloon pilot an exciting adventure is things like flying over the North Pole, where it’s so cold that the gas turns to liquid and has to be stored in special, pressurized containers, or working for a year in Switzerland, where it turns out balloon pilots are in high demand and short supply.) The flight itself was nothing short of amazing. We spent a lot of time very high up (not sure how high…just “very”), able to see the entire expanse of Goreme, the surrounding villages and all of the valleys. At other points, though, we were literally feet off the ground in the valleys. Our pilot, Mike , was able to point out cave churches and Roman burial grounds at eye level. And…I have pictures!

They were still inflating the balloon when our van arrived. These balloons are HUGE--on the order of 315,000 cubic square feet.


Pilot Mike blasting the gas. I had a spot right next to him, so if you were worried about me getting chilly at the high altitudes, you can relax.


I've never seen Stonehenge, but does it kind of look like this?


In the lower corner you can see a few of the vineyards on the floor of Honey Valley.


Looking straight down at Honey Valley.


Sunrise over Red Valley. The holes in the rock on the far left lead to cave churches!


Champagne toast after a successful landing.