I Went Here, 1

Limestone Delight, 1

In 2008 after Egypt, I visited Turkey, accompanying my friends Don Frew and Anna Korn, Glenn Turner and Katya. Part of this fantastic trip was spent in Cappadocia, a land of limestone whose caves are astonishing.

We went to Göreme, a place noted for its “fairy chimneys” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6reme) . I took the first picture, and since then have sees that the photo is pretty much a standard shot for tourists. The gigantic perky cones are pretty cool. Most of the time you don’t see things like these other melted houses that are more common.

But as cool as that was, it was not as cool as Derinkuyu. The Wikipedia article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derinkuyu_Underground_City) briefly covers “history,” but there is no actual evidence of who or what or when these were actually made. Here miles and miles of tunnels go deep, and Derinkuyu is even connected to another one by an underground passage that’s five miles long!

No doubt the upper floors were used for a long time of human history. But doubt remains about what it was used for. Capable of holding 50,000 people? There are doubts about the ventilation functioning under such pressure.

I saw this mass of worm holes long after I ever made my underground troll maps. I could pretend I had visions of this place back then, because my troll maps are pretty convincing renditions! But if I have to choose a made up critter responsible for this, I have to go with cthonians.