Up Up and Away

It's 3:45 am and the alarm goes off. A few seconds later D1's alarm goes off, and before they both stop buzzing, the guy on the reception desk does his job and places the requested wake up call. Why you ask, are we getting up at this time of the morning in far away Göreme in Cappadocia? The answer is simple, it's the day of our long awaited hot air balloon flight (not ride, but flight if you please) over the fairy chimneys of Cappadocia.

The mini-bus arrives at 4:05 am and we are taken to the offices of the balloon company, where there are at least 100 people eating pastries and drinking tea before being assigned to a pilot and taken in another mini-bus to our almost inflated balloon about 15 minutes out of town.

In no time, all 14 of us are wedged into the giant fruit basket and greeted by our pilot Turgut, who assures us that he knows what he is doing even though this will be his first flight. An American lady next to us just about faints, and Turgut says "only joking" to the great relief of all those who believed him in the first place. By this time the sun is rising rapidly in the east and balloons are taking to the air from every piece of flat ground all around us.

Only when we are up about 5000 feet above sea level can we see the number of balloons in the air, and there has to be at least 100. The morning air is very still, there is practically no breeze to speak of, and the scenery is stunning in every direction. As we float along at a a very leisurely pace, the American woman has managed to keep her breakfast down, the French lady in another corner of the giant fruit basket is sitting down on the floor too petrified to look over the edge, and Turgut is having a ball descending down to tree top level and manoeuvring his way along the numerous gullies and gorges.

We also fly past the town of Uchisar close enough to make out all the details of the buildings in this very old area of Cappadocia before once again starting our descent, this time for a landing, which Turgut says with some confidence "will be on back of trailer, no need for brace position"

And true to his word, he lands the balloon on the back of the waiting trailer after a two hour flight, and receives a round of applause from all those in the giant fruit basket, except the American woman who is close to throwing up, and the French woman who is still hunkered down on the floor of the basket. Once out of the basket and on the ground, there's drinks and cake to be shared, the merchandise table appears, and Turgut is already on his second re-run of the home movie he made of our flight. 

All in all a great experience, and something every visitor to Cappadocia should do on a fine morning, remembering that you have to get up at 3:45 am. We were very comfortably back at our hotel by 8:15 am and chowing down on breakfast in readiness for the rest of the day.

D2