“Sinkhole” Population: 500
East of Konya, 4km north of the road to Aksaray, there’s a caravanserai that is well worth the effort of getting to not least because it sits immediately beside the huge circular Kızören sinkhole, 145m deep, that is filled by a karst lake. In spring the water is a pea-green, the same sort of colour you see in carpets that have been dyed using a walnut-based colourant although the custodian assured me that it becomes turquoise blue in the height of summer. To everyone’s amazement, in 2020 the lake turned a deep magenta pink as a result of bacteria formation.
It’s not known exactly when the sinkhole formed although 19th-century European travellers, including Gertrude Bell, left descriptions of it.
The caravanserai itself is assumed from its architecture to be a 13th-century Selçuk structure although its kitabe (dedication stone), if it ever had one, has been lost. It differs from many other such structures in part because of the crenellations on the facade that make it look rather like a castle – these are more pronounced since its restoration. A stroll round the outside is very revealing since it’s obvious that many of the stones used to build the han started life as Christian gravestones or are spolia from Byzantine structures, possibly from the nearby site of Perta, near Giymir village.
It’s possible to walk right around the crater behind the caravanserai provided you step carefully over the rusty pipes that once carried water for irrigation out to the fields. Be a bit careful as the scree can be slippery in places. Lots of birds nest in the walls of the sinkhole. Most are pigeons but I also saw a pair of eagles here as well as a hoopoe and many wheatears.
The caravanserai was one of a chain of such places lining the Silk Road trading route to provide overnight accommodation for traders and their animals.
In 2024 a luxury 13-bed hotel, the Obruk Inn, opened inside the restored caravanserai.
Sleeping
The village of Obruk is only inhabited in summer, most of the small farming community moving into Konya in the winter. You could put up for the night in Sultanhanı or Aksaray although Konya has the best choice of hotels in the area.
Transport info
This is a visit best made with a car. If you haven’t got one you should take a bus from Konya heading for Aksaray and ask to be let off in Kızören. It’s then just a flat 4km walk to the ruins with a fair chance that someone will offer you a lift.
Alternatively you can try and find a “taxi” from Sultanhanı.
