Yabadabadoo!

Walking around the town of Goreme, I noticed that the Flintstones were a pretty common reference. There were Flintstones cafes, Flintstones hostels, even a Flintstones handicraft workshop.

It's not without good reason. Cappadocia is famous for the cave homes that have been built into its otherworldly landscape. I have a friend who is notorious for having blurted out, while driving along the potholed roads of Kamuning, Quezon City: "Where are we? Are we on the moon or something?" A town like Goreme is the perfect place to ask such a question.

Residents of Goreme, and similar towns in Cappadocia, are real-life Flintstones—they've turned caves into homes. And with the tourism boom, many of those homes have been converted into hotels.

A cave hotel is the place to stay in Cappadocia. Unless your life is an adventure novel (hello, Hunger Games), how many times in your life will you ever have the chance to sleep in a cave?

Come into our cozy cave dwelling, after the jump!

I booked a room for Marlon and myself at the Travellers' Cave Hotel, which has excellent reviews on Booking.com. From these pictures, you can probably get an inkling as to why. 

The hotel is built into a hill overlooking central Goreme. It's built in such a way that we couldn't see any of the other rooms from where we were staying, which was nice.

And yes, the rooms really are built into caves. 

This is what our room looked like inside. I would have thought all the stone would make it feel cold, but it was actually quite cozy and homey.

It was such a nice feeling to come home to our cave after being out in temperatures ranging from 7 to -2℃. Having a fireplace helped too, though we only lit it on our last evening in Goreme.

There was a slight smell of wet stone in the bathroom, but nothing highly objectionable. Though from some of the reviews on Booking.com, it seems a few travelers took issue with that. Lighten up, prissy people, it's a cave. Let's just be happy it even has a hot shower and a warm bed!