We’ve heard a lot about Turkish hospitality and in Cappadocia, we experienced it first hand. We stayed at a small family run hotel called the Kismet Cave House. Faruk, the owner spent the last 6 years renovating the place in his spare time and has created a great place to stay while exploring the Cappadocia. Faruk has lived in the area all his life and gave us a tour one day of some off the beaten path places he has visited since he was a boy. At breakfast and in the evenings Faruk would hang out and tell stories and made us feel at home.
Also staying at the hotel was a very nice couple who we spent a lot of time with. John from Turkey and Maggie from Bulgaria became our best friends for a few days. John owns a travel agency and Maggie is a tour guide in Istanbul so they were a wealth of information about the country. John in particular is a full fledged ambassador for Turkey. He is very proud of his country and enjoyed answering our questions about Turkish culture with Maggie by his side adding her perspective from growing up in a neighboring country.
On the second day of our stay, we rented motorbikes with John and Maggie. Our last stop was this small mosque in a farming village. We luckily showed up right when the Imam (basically the parish priest for Catholics) was getting ready for evening prayer. He gave us a brief tour and much to our surprise, invited us all back to his house. Good thing John was with us to translate all of this, since he didn’t speak English. We all had a very nice time chatting and enjoyed learning a little about the Muslim religion.