Balloons, caves and fairy chimneys

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The fairytale landscape of Cappadocia is impossible to describe in words. It is a place unlike any other. A landscape truly unrivalled. To think that such a place could exist! I could never have imagined such a beautiful sight prior to arriving in this lunar landscape. Driving in, Hayley and Kevin advised that we should squash up onto the beach to check out the view as the first sight of a fairy chimney is something we'd never forget. And surrounded by my Oasis friends, I sat on the beach completely mesmerised by the pointy little structures adorning the hillsides and valleys, as well as the pale, rock formations stretching as far as the eye could see. I'd seen pictures of Cappadocia while I'd been researching our trip and I'd heard wonderful stories from the few people I knew who'd been to this area so my expectations were high prior to arriving. What I wasn't prepared for was just how blown out of the water I would be by a place that exceeded every possible expectation in every possible way. All we could utter was 'wow' as we drove in, savoruing a moment that undoubtedly, I'll never forget.

This was a beautiful beginning to our time in Cappadoccia which can only be described as absolutely perfect. We stayed in a campsite perched halfway between Goreme and Urgup, the town we visited on our first night to have a carpet demonstration and a brief wander around. That very first niight in this region, I was already captivated by the magic of my surrounds and I quickly became awed by the skills of the people in this area whose local trade is based around production of carpets. Despite having vowed not to buy a carpet whilst in Turkey, Adam and I joined our friends for dinner in a local carpet weavers showroom and following the demonstration of single and double weaving of carpet threads on the vast loom, I admittedly was awed by the shear amount of work required to produce a floor covering. As we listened to our hosts telling us about the art of carpet weaving, we discovered a newfound respect for the art and momentarily considered breaking our vow. But then when it came to it, I couldn't imagine walking on something that I knew had taken someone so long to hand weave. And so we left the carpet demonstration, stomach full of delicious local cuisine but arms empty. We didn't go home completely empty handed though as we stumbled across a local sweets patisserie and a pottery store (of course!) Armed with some plates and some delicious local delicacies, we were driven back to our accommodation (admittedly by a crazed local whose vehicle seemed to possess no such thing as a brake) and made our way down under the main building to our 'cave', a huge room below the floor level which would be our home for the next 3 nights. The cave was not as primitive as the the name would suggest-it had power and lights and of course the roaring fire. But it was certainly cold and drafty and had it not been for the fire, I suspect it may have been something far less than pleasent. But as it was, we were blessed by our little man who shovelled branches of pine and wood into the fire, and we fell asleep that evening to the sound of pine crackling as it was englufed by the flames of our fire, wafts of pine drifting through the air.

Cappadocia is famous for many things, but among them, the region is famed for the balloons that take to the skies every dawn as visitors seek an unencombered view of this magical land. The decision to go ballooning was one of the best I've ever made and delivered one of the very best experiences of my life time. I can't express how excited I felt as we climbed into the basket of our lovely brightly coloured balloon on our second day in Cappadocia. As we began to lift off and I watched the ground below get smaller and smaller, I was beside myself with joy. Hearing the frequent bursts of gas being released to lift us ever higher, whilst experiencing the incredibly gentle feeling of rising and falling ever so slowly, all the time watching the shadow of our balloon on the amazing lunar landscape below. Amazing. And the sight of all the balloons in the air!!! It was simply stunning and the millions of photos we took that day could not do the sight justice. I never ever wanted to touch down but it was inevitable that all good things must come to an end. Our flight attendent completed our journey in style though, bringing down the basket on the back of the trailer that would drive it back to the original starting point! Magic!!!

Our day continued on in this fine style as we arrived back to the campsite in time for a delicious breakfast before heading out on a full day guided tour of the area. Our tour guide was a hilarious little woman who took us to the underground city where the residents of this area once used to live, a place of retreat and protection from enemies crossing this land. The underground city was up to 8 storey's below the ground and was an intricate construction of rooms and tunnels. To imagine whole families living together in these surrounds, sometimes for many months, complete with their animals too! We also visited the Open Air Museum which has preserved areas where families had indeed lived in the fairy chimneys up until the last century or so and we saw more of the lunar landscape from fabulous vantage points, taking in amazing panoramic views of the surroundings. There are some formations that are famous for very specific reasons-some because of their shape or likeness to animals or objects, some because of legends surrounding their formation, such as that of the little family. Some could be climbed upon and Adam took full advantage of this, successfully making his way all the way up to the top of quite a large fairy chimney! And the final stop of the day was to a pottery barn where we witnessed pottery being made and hand decorated by locals who'd practiced this trade for hundreds of years.

After such a fun filled day, it seemed impossible that we were all to head out to a traditional Turkish night that evening. Although a little tired, the party mood was well established with some great tunes played en-route to the Turkish restaurant ('I've got a feeling that tonight's gonna be a good night, that tonight's gonna be a good good night!'😉. We were all in the mood to party by the time we sat down at our table but slightly disappointingly, the atmosphere of the restaurant was surprisingly lacking. We'd all come prepared that this would be the most touristy thing we'd do whilst we were in Turkey, if not the whole Middle East and as expected, we were surrounded by other bus crews and tour groups. But the place wasn't completely full and the initial entertainment, the whirling dervishes, were a disappointment overall. I'm not sure what we'd been hoping for but this certainly didn't feel like it. Given the slow start, it seemed it would be up to ourselves to make our own fun. And on that front, our group truly delivered. As the night wore on, and the alcohol was flowing more freely, we found ourselves dancing along with the Turkish entertainers and having a good laugh. The night also delivered the most hilarious moment of the entire trip-that of Craig and Jan dancing with the Turkish Belly Dancer. I've never laughed so hard in all my life! I think we were all still laughing about this at 3am as we danced the night away at Fat Boy's bar. Good times.

Unsurprisingly, after staying out until the wee small hours, 'recovery day' got off to a slow start. I had the best of intentions to get up early to take in the sight of balloons on the horizon. But I was clearly deluding myself in my belief that this was even possible. After our night out with our dancing shoes on, it was mid-morning by the time we were up and eating breakfast. It was afternoon before we walked into town, taking in the sights of the fairy chimneys from every possible aspect and eating icecream as we wandered about the centre of town. Late afternoon by the time we paused on comfy couches for freshly squeezed juice. And even later still before we headed to a turkish hamman for the full pampering experience. Admittedly most of us were quite unsure what a true hamman experience would be like in Turkey but it was every bit as pleasant as one could hope. After some time in a hot, hot sauna, We were laid out on hot stone and vigorously scrubbed from head to toe before being encouraged to plunge into the cool pool for some floating relaxation. It was the perfect end to a perfect few days. Later as we all were curled up in our sleeping bags with the fire crackling away, it seemed a terribly sad prospect to be leaving such an amazing place and it was with heavy hearts that we all climbed onto Twiga before daybreak and drove away from what can only be described as a truly magical place.

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