The first mail I received I simply deleted. Another email spamming me with races around the world. Those who know me, know that I try to run as well. Deep in my heart I’d love to run an ultra, but till now, a marathon is all that I managed. Never mind, back to the mail. It offered a trip to the Cappadocia Ultra trail. I didn’t care about an organized trip, but the trail looked rather amazing and it would be a great birthday present. So, applied, tickets bought and some months later we were in Cappadocia, Turkey.

This was my first real Turkish coffee (brewed and served in Turkey) on a small terrace overlooking one of the many valley’s Cappadocia has. The view is amazing, and so is the history of this area. Actually, it is rather surrealistic and it was hard not to shoot thousands of photographs. But then, I never shoot thousands of photographs so I did’t want to do it now. Plenty of time still to discover the area, what the heck, I will even run through it. 

In Cappadocia, one valley is called the ‘valley of imagination’. It’s called like this as the shapes of the rocks have all kind of forms, and you really can let your mind wander here. Imagine which shape is what.

Sadly, we had only half an hour to wander around, while I could have spend a full day here playing with shadows, light and shapes.

One shape stood rather out. If you use your imagination (which is the idea is this valley), you could see a sea lion / seal. I always like my encounters with them … it must be my name …

Cappadocia is amazing, no single area is the same, though it might look at first sight. Wind, water, time, erosion, made it an unique place on earth.