Seeking The Secret Church II

Having been thwarted in our first attempt to visit Göreme's Saklı Kilise (Hidden Church), a friend and I tried again last Monday morning, feeling quietly confident that this time we would do better. We had, you see, made a date with the key-holder, which hopefully meant that success was guaranteed.
Things did not get off to a particularly swinging start when the key-holder's brindled bitch took one look at my friend's much smaller, more sheep-like dog and flew at him from her shady spot beneath a bench like the proverbial bat out of hell. Luckily I had the same big handbag with me that had come in so handy a few months earlier when I'd used it to beat off the frenzied dog that had just bitten me in Gülhane Park. Fortunately this was a far less determined assault and the bitch slunk off back to the shade again as both dog owners remonstrated with their animals.
The key-holder walked a little way along a ridge of rock behind the shelter with us, then handed the key over to us in an act of much-appreciated trust. His directions were clear. With only one brief false turn, we were soon descending the concealed steps that led to an even more concealed entrance. In we stepped and, boy, was it worth the second trip.
It's not hard to see why the Saklı Kilise is kept locked. Like most of Cappadocia's frescoed churches it's too small to accommodate many visitors comfortably. More to the point, though, you have only to look up at the ceiling to see how layers of rock have peeled away like the coatings of an onion bringing down with them the frescoes that once covered it. Given the way in which my own house sheds bits of rock on a daily basis it's hardly surprising that this should have happened. The Cappadocian landscape is, after all, the product of erosion, an erosion that hasn't come to a convenient halt just because it would suit the tourism industry to have all the churches accessible.
No matter. Both of us had lived here long enough to have adopted a very local devil-may-care attitude to the risk of rockfall. Sure, I remember the odd night when I dozed off to sleep while wondering if the large fairy chimney behind my house would slip down the hill in the night and take my house with it, but that was during the period when the houses attached to it were being converted into a hotel, which necessitated a lot of rather alarming drilling. Now that the work is complete I never give the risk a second's thought.
My friend cast her expert eye over the frescoes and gave me a quick rundown of what was what. The artist had favored a limited palette of shades of orange, but there were some fine-painted details, especially of the apostles attending the Dormition of the Virgin, each wearing a different hairstyle. I was particularly taken, too, with the crib in which the baby Jesus lay. It looked as if a typically Göremeli wooden cradle had been drawn and details of Byzantine ornamentation added on top.
My friend pointed out what looked like atypical attempts to add a Cappadocian-style rocky landscape to the background of several images. Given the spectacular view towards Uçhisar that greeted us when we stepped outside again, perhaps that shouldn't have come as much of a surprise.
Pat Yale lives in a restored cave-house in Göreme, Cappadocia.

PAT YALE (Cihan/Today's Zaman)