Cappadocia By Air and Land

Day 17

Our day started with a 4:11 am call to prayer. All of our hotels are located near mosques, sometimes we can hear the call, sometimes not. This morning, it was loud and clear. It didn’t really matter too much though, as we had our alarm set for 4:15 am to get ready for a 4:40 departure to our sunrise hot air balloon ride.

We arrived way too early at the launch site and just stood around watching all the balloons get filled. The process took at least an hour, but it was really cool watching all the other balloons inflate and lift off. Our group included 2 other American women from Seattle and a group of 10 women and one youth from Italy. It was a loud bunch, even at 5 in the morning. The basket was sectioned off into 4 quadrants plus the middle area where the tanks and operator were located. Each quadrant had 4 Italians in it, except ours, just 3 chunky Americans. Our big butts paid off for once and for balance purposes we had the least number of viewers in our section. The ride was an hour long and totally worth it! It was so smooth, and beautiful. We viewed the area of Cappadocia in the most incredible way that we both highly recommend the experience if you ever make it to this area. Cappadocia is a massive area that has volcanic rock formations like no other in the world. It is truly unique and breath taking. After we touched down in a random field, the ground crew helped us out of the basket and offered us warm champagne to toast the occasion. It was a wonderful gesture and we both, although very tired, enjoyed the ride tremendously.

We returned to our hotel by 7:15, had some breakfast and a nap before we headed back out into the city for another tour at 9:30. We thought we were going to get to see the underground city in the southern part of the area, but that tour was yesterday. So we were already disappointed once we learned we would be touring the northern part. It did start out great with a walk through the Open Air Museum. It was a large area which contained over 1000 cave churches from Byzantine Times carved into the hills. The large, phallic symbols are called fairy chimneys and are formed by volcanic ash and erosion. In the caves were frescos painted inside the walls paying homage to Christian saints and JC. Several of the frescos were defaced during the Iconic period, but you could still see the details and the colors used in the art. It was very different from the previous ruins we have seen. This was the best part of the tour.

The rest of it included stops of the “best views” of Cappadocia. Well, since we had just seen the best views a few hours earlier from the hot air balloon, these paled in comparison. We also went to another ceramics place where the most famous pottery guy in Turkey runs his shop, Chez Galip. He demonstrated how to make a tea pot, which Kirsten guessed what it was correctly and won a tiny little salt bowl and his autograph on his card. His shop had a ton of beautiful bowls, plates, Turkish vine crafts and tons of other ceramics. We were tempted to buy, but since we had already purchased the same stuff from, we guess, a lesser known potter, we just waited for the others.

Lunch was in a cave and it was delicious. The cave was really cool in appearance and temperature. After lunch we hit a few places to take more pictures of the land forms. We trekked around for 30 minutes here and there and then were back in the van to another place. It was a nice tour, but we were still disappointed we didn’t get to hike through the under ground city, I guess that means we have to make it back here again some day. The tour group was a nice bunch, but of course there was one weird lady from England. She had crazy eyes and asked the most mundane questions. At least she wasn’t yelling at our tour guide like the 6 year old was on the previous tour. And, of course, as we are Americans and the best travelers, we were perfect on the trip and were the only ones to tip our tour guides. The only other tourists we have seen tip their guides were the two women from Seattle on the hot air balloon ride. Go USA!
Stay tuned for tomorrow. We fly back to Istanbul, dump our backpacks off at our original hotel and then we are off to the Turkish Bath House. We cautiously await what the afternoon has in store for us!

---

Part of trip: Egypt and Turkey

---