You step off the bus at dawn and the land opens like a strange map: honey-colored ridges, squat chimneys of stone, narrow gullies cut by wind and rain. A small wind teases dust down an ancient track while guides call out the best spots for photographs — Uchisar silhouetted against a pale sky, the Three Beauties carved from volcanic tuff like a family frozen in stone. The first day of this two-day loop from Antalya moves fast: a seven-hour coach run across the Anatolian plain, then a compact circuit through Cappadocia’s most iconic landscapes, ending with a night in a cave hotel where a room is hewn from the same rock that shapes the horizon.