Cappadocia- Is This For Real?!?

Hello all!
I have not posted for a week. A week. Last you heard from me, we had just left the village; we arrived back in Istanbul this morning. Dear readers, brace yourselves for the 15,000 pages of posting I plan on putting up today.
First, Cappadocia! Cappadocia is the Roman name of a region in central Anatolia that is easily one of the craziest-looking places on earth. We arrived at about 7, greeted by this view:

Sunset over Cappadocia.
Here's the view from our hotel's terrace in the morning, with some huge, snowcapped mountain in the background:
First item on Day 1's agenda was, obviously, exploring. A couple of us went climbing through some rock-cut houses by our hotel. To give you an idea about how weird this place is, this is the police station:
That is a big rock with entire floors carved into its center, and that's the way people have been living here for thousands of years. More pictures of this crazy place:
Half the group standing in a halfway eroded room of one rock-cut house, overlooking the valley.

What's this little gem? We entered by the tiny entrance and found that it was...

a 7th century church. Just a small, early-medieval church (arches, dome, and all) cut into big rock on the side of the path.
As Paleolithic as it all seems, every once in a while things like these satellite dishes remind you that people are still living in these structures.
These are some of the things we saw on our way to Goreme, the central town of Cappadocia. It's really touristy, so we stayed in another town a few miles away (Uchisar). The main event of our first day was a visit to Goreme's incredible Open Air Museum. This is the set up: there are a dozen or so rock cut churches in the 'museum', built into the cliffs, and you get to wander at will through them. Here's a typical interior example:
The most incredible is the 'Dark' Church; here's the exterior:
It's so amazingly beautiful inside, more visually impressive than everything we've seen so far except maybe Hagia Sophia. I don't know how much you can see of these, but here are some of the best parts:
Christ Pantocrator (ruler of the world), on the central dome.
This is the Emperor Constantine the Great and his mother Helena with the True Cross, which the latter discovered in Jerusalem in the 330s. This scene was in almost every one of the churches. Also, many of the churches' figures had their faces (or at least eyes) scratched out; we're not sure if that was done by iconoclastic Byzantines or the Muslims.
One of my favorite paintings: Christ breaking the gates of Hell, leading Adam and Eve into Heaven. I don't know if the person under Christ's feet is supposed to be Satan or a personification of death.
This place was so beautiful.

Here's the apse of the 'Buckle' Church, the largest in the Museum. I think you can get a sense of the scale- and this was carved into a cliff.
The next day we went to an underground city (writing this post a week later, all these bizarre things seem rather normal). There are several such complexes, which extend up to 8 floors below ground level and could accomodate up to 20,000 people. This is what it looks like going down:
The staircases get narrower the farther down you go. Also, there are thousands of tourist groups, making it a claustrophobe's dream come true. Only way to get around:
Amanda, sporting the ever-popular miner look.
Emerging from our time underground, we took an hour ride to the Ihlara Valley, a kind of large-scale Open Air Museum. It's spectacularly beautiful; the path follows a clear stream, flanked by huge cliffs into which more churches have been carved:
These churches are so inconspicuous; you really do have to look for them.
Really interesting ceiling of one.
Apse of another.
This is what they look like from the outside. I wish our national parks had Byzantine churches in them too!
After our long trek through the valley, we were ready to cool off, so we went to a lake. Located in a volcanic crater, it was absolutely beautiful:

Unfortunately, the lake bed was mud (or, more accurately, quicksand). For some reason, we swam across. I can't really say anything else, because I don't know why we decided to, but we did. Rather an impressive feat; I had to photoshop two pictures together to make the one above. That night we had a little darty in our cave rooms. Yeah, our hotel had cave rooms. So obviously we slept in them, even though they were cold and damp (who would've thought?). Note- 'Darty' is UNC/Turkish for party.
The next day was our last in Cappadocia, so we went to Red Valley, the last major site in the region. Pretty incredible, but you've heard enough about valleys and rock-cut churches haven't you? I still have to post pictures though!
The valley we walked through
The view from one of the hills
Ceiling of one particularly beautiful rock-cut church along the trail.
A cliff- or is it?
It's a huge rock-cut church! One of the biggest we saw, definitely. Still can't get over how incredible these buildings are, carved right into the rock.
David, by one of the columns, for some scale.
So that's Cappadocia. We spent 3 days there, longer than anywhere else on our excursion. I think it was probably my favorite stop, filled with so much history and natural beauty. Ankara to come, either tonight or early tomorrow. Thanks for reading, and I'll talk to you soon!