Journey towards the sun

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Our second day in Cappadocia was supposed to start with an adventure we had not done before and were very much looking forward to. We were to take the hot air balloon flight that is so famous in Cappadocia. We were picked up from our hotel at 4 am and were taken to the vast open field. In the dark of the night, the field was strewn with numerous huge colorful air balloons those were being prepared for the flight. There were huge fans blowing very hard –which were used to fill the insides of the balloons with air. Once the balloons were somewhat filled with air, fires was blown directed towards the inside of the balloon so that the air inside would get hot and the balloon slowly started to rise. It was as if the balloon was sleeping and it was being awaken to start the journey. The basket on which 10 people would get in seemed tiny compared to the balloon. The basket was tied to the ground so that the balloon wouldn’t take off on its own. Once the balloon rose straight, people got inside the basket along with a pilot (who would be maneuvering the balloon purely manually thousands of feet above ground. Before taking flight, the pilot taught us some ground rules- positioning during landing and some basic rules like “don’t lean over the edge of the basket or there is nothing between you and the hard ground thousands of feet below”. And just like that, the binding ropes were untied and we took off just before dawn!

We rose slowly. The pilot was an Egyptian and he was controlling the balloon by blowing gas and fire occasionally inside the balloon. As we rose a few hundred feet, the sky started to to show faint rays of the sun. Numerous other balloons were also raising up- some were above us, some were below us and some were in the same level as us. We could see the horizon now- and also the vast Cappadocia valley below us. Sun was slowly coming up from behind the horizon- spreading golden light in the sky. It felt like all the colorful balloons are small birds in the sky flying towards the sun. This experience was awesome.

As the sky became clear, we could see the entire valley of Cappadocia. The fairy chimneys below us, the 3 layered rock formation- all were visible from a bird’s eye view. From air, we could easily spot the “Love Valley” of Cappadocia- it comprises of many fairy chimneys (description of these in my previous blog regarding Cappadocia) very much resembling the – “male reproductive organ” ! It was a fun sight indeed.

The balloon flight lasted for over an hour and guests were offered champagne and certificates for flying on hot air balloon. Even when we were on the ground, we could see the sky filled with balloons which now looked like small birds flying. There were total 85 balloons on air that morning- imagine the sight!

Another significant attraction of that day was visiting the open air museum of Cappadocia. This is a world heritage sight- it is basically a number of churches curved in the mountain centuries back. The churches had beautiful frescos- colorful paintings from the bible drawn inside the cave walls. They had even curved domes inside the mountain and painted on those too. The ancient generation processed eggs somehow to protect the frescos and amazingly, even after many centuries, the frescos are still in pretty good condition. It is not allowed to take photographs of those frescos- which is a shame!

There were dining halls- a stone table, with stone benches on both sides and a head seat for the teacher, with stone wash basins beside the dining table and also a small curve in the cave beside the wash basin where soap was kept. The church rooms were curved high up the mountains. Now there are artificial stairs for tourists but originally, the students of the churches used to climb the walls of the cave I don’t know how many times a day! It’s an amazing place.

This was our final day in Cappadocia and we left for Seljuk that evening. I really liked the cave living skills of people of Cappadocia and the fairy chimney’s but the hot air balloon flight, though a bit expensive (over a 100 Euros per person) was truly worth an experience. I would recommend this to everyone.

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