Up, up and away!

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Stumbling out of bed at 4.45am in a cold cave is a surreal experience. I am in Cappadocia, in Turkey, staying in a cave hotel and about to take my first ever hot air balloon ride and an early morning is required in order to see the sun rise. Personally I'm not that fussed about sunrises and would rather have an extra few hours in bed, but nevertheless we are picked up by the ballooning company's minibus and a bleary-eyed group keeps fingers crossed that the wind conditions will be ok to fly (or float - not sure what term you use for hot air balloons).

It seems our minibus driver is a rally cross wannabe as we race past other trundling buses at break neck speed, dust flying up behind us, tyres screeching. We are dropped at the company's offices where we all pay the massive amounts deemed necessary to risk life and limb on this strange activity of hot air ballooning. We are then moved to the holding area where we are plied with teas, coffees and breakfast buns while we wait to see if the balloons can go up today. As I said, we are supposed to be seeing the sun rise from a hot air balloon, but as the minutes turn to an hour and the sun is very obviously now risen, we begin to suspect that we might not only miss the sun rise but the trip itself may actually get cancelled. No-one voices this out loud of course as we don't want to jinx the trip, but it's not looking hopeful. It is with great relief therefore to find ourselves herded back to our minibus to begin another rally cross mission to overtake all other vehicles blocking our way.

We pass many spots where there are already groups of people huddled next to baskets without the balloons unfurled. It's still not looking good. When we arrive at our field there are about 30 or so other hopeful groups waiting near their balloon baskets but again none have been taken out to be inflated. And so a long wait ensues, people taking silly photos posing in front of balloon baskets - we take a happy face and sad face version just in case the only photos we have of ballooning are the basket - on the ground! And then the dreadful news comes - we are going back to base in the van - noooooooo! A forlorn looking group sits in the bus hoping upon hope for some miracle. The guys are still talking to each other on walkie talkies and we stop again while they get out at a different spot. Suddenly they rush back to the minibus and we do a big U-turn and rally cross, bump, bump, swerve, dust churning, bowling back to the place we'd just left and there we see a couple of balloons beginning to take shape.

We are all so excited. We are going going up after all. Our guys quickly get into gear working like a well oiled machine each doing their part to get our yellow and sky blue balloon airborne. We meet our pilot, a hunky Turk with a big grin who, with his co-pilot welcomes us all on board as we inelegantly hoik our legs up over the edge of the basket and tumble inside. If I were a cat I'd be washing my face by now, pretending nothing is untoward and that I obviously meant to do that!

All around us balloons are at various states of readiness. We start to see some lifting off and soon our own balloon too is ready, straining at the ropes that are tethering it to the trailer. One of our group who isn't coming with us is standing next to the balloon taking photos. The pilot swings his go-pro round to each side of the basket to get an excitable wave just before we take off and then suddenly we are rising up, up, up and away. It's so fast and we see our friend below getting smaller and smaller until she's just a tiny dot. It's such a rush. There are balloons all around us, their big bulbous forms sitting in the sky like Christmas baubles, colourful and shiny. It's so exciting. We're all taking photos and grinning like loons. We can see the fabulous, weird rock formations of Cappadocia laid out below us stretching for miles and miles.

Our flight takes us towards the edge of a small town which we think might be near our cave hotel and as we approach the rock face just before the town it seems as if we are too low. But it's just the naughty pilot tricking us into thinking he's left it too late. Of course he knows exactly what he's doing and gives the balloon a sudden burst of gas making some people scream as it's so loud. Up we go missing the rocks by miles and so the flight continues. We float really close to some of the valleys where the strangest looking rocks seem like phallic symbols pointing skywards. At one point we rise higher than many of the other balloons around us and float directly over a couple of them. It's magical. There are so many balloons up in the air, literally hundreds. It's such an amazing sight and so peaceful too, just the odd burst of gas burner breaking the stillness with a roar.

After about 45 minutes of glorious ballooning the pilot prepares us for our landing. We have to face away from the direction of travel and grab onto handles on the side of the basket in front of us and duck down below the top. It's really knackering on the leg muscles and we have a bit of a false start when the guys following on the ground in our truck and trailer have to be directed to a different field to meet our incoming balloon. Finally it seems they are heading to the right place and we are told to prepare again and all dip down inside the basket, nervously clinging onto the handles. We needn't have worried. Our pilot is a complete pro and lands the balloon ON the trailer. We hardly feel a bump as the ground crew grabs the sides of the basket and secures it to the trailer before deflating the balloon. Incredible skills, especially considering they had nearly cancelled the trip due to the wind conditions. Our pilot gets a big cheer from our group. We find out later that we were very near to the set boundary where the balloons are allowed to land and he pointed out a few who had gone over and would be getting massive fines as a result.

The ground crew decorates the balloon basket with flowers and sets up a table with glasses of bubbly and chocolate cake for us all to enjoy and we get to have a quick look at the video our pilot took on the go-pro. I decide to order one. What and experience. I absolutely loved it, memories to treasure for a lifetime.

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