My personal fairy tale in Cappadocia

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Ok, so Goreme is totally wacky. I hope you can get a feeling for this by perusing the photos that I have attached. And this is completely a good wacky. What an awesome place.

I had seen some photos of the rock formations around here before I came, but there is no substitute for the real thing. They are crazy. Honestly I feel like I am walking through a Dr. Seuss book or something like this.

As the minibus rides into Goreme (I had to switch from a bus to a minibus in Nevsehir) you wind between some rock structures that are illuminated with artificial lighting. A nice entrée into the sights of Goreme.

I arrived late at night (11:30pm) but was able to make it to my pension with the help of some friendly locals. So cheap - only 15 TL, or $8.33 per night. And our pension has a pool and a restaurant. And its at a great location close to the bus station. I settled in for the night and feel quickly asleep.

When I woke up in the morning I chatted with another guy that was in my pension's dorm room. He is a Canadian guy who puts my travels to shame. He's a nice guy and we ended up going for a hike after we had a breakfast at the pension. He's also been on an epic trip, coming from India, Pakistan, Iran, Turkey so far on this trip. Not too shabby. Of course he is Canadian (Vancouverite) - that should go without saying at this point.

We hiked along the main road towards the Open_Air Museum and made a right to walk towards a church. After finding out the church was going to be 8 TL for a tiny church, we decided to pass on the church and wandered up into the valley beyond, ultimately making our way into Love Valley, the home of some of the most phallus-looking fairy chimneys. After we parted ways after our hike, I headed on to the Goreme Open-Air Museum which I was underimpressed by due to the swarms of package tours. Seems like mostly middle-aged overweight Germans.

I came back to the pension with the view to sit around for a while and perhaps go for a swim. I ended up chatting with another fellow pensioner from New Zealand and we had a nice chat about travels and India and New Zealand. This pension has been really nice. They even have a fridge with drinks and you can write your name and drinks down on a list based on the honor system. On a price/goodness ratio, this is probably the best place I have stayed so far in Turkey.

I had to get to bed early (even though I didn't) because.......... I WENT FOR A HOT AIR BALLOON RIDE!!

The hot air balloon ride through the hills in Cappadocia is honestly the highlight of my trip so far. Ranks pretty high up there in terms of lifetime traveling experiences. There is no sensation like floating in a balloon.

The hot air balloon ride began by waking up at 5:00 am since the ride is right around sunrise time. Ouch! I had to put on all my warm clothes since it was a bit chilly outside, and I figured (rightly) it would be even cooler in the air.

I was picked up from my pension at around 5:40 (was told to be outside at 5:20am). All the time I was waiting I saw vans criss-crossing the roads around me picking up victims for the various hot air balloon companies scattered around Goreme.

Eventually a van came for me and picked me up, taking me to the building for the company where I went to the toilet and had a cookie. We then got back into our van and headed towards the liftoff zone.

The launching of a hot air balloon is a multi-step process. First the basket is laid out on the ground on its side, and the balloon is unrolled on the ground. Large gas-powered fans are used to inflate the balloon with cold air to start. Once the balloon is semi-inflated, the burners of the basket are fired up horizontally in order to get the balloon heating up. After the balloon is sufficiently buoyant, it begins to move upwards, and eventually the buoyancy is high enough to right the basket and the hot-air balloon is fully inflated with hot air, but tethered to something solid like a large jeep. At this point, all the passengers get in the basket, and with the release of the knot and a jet of flame, you are off, up up and away. Here is a video of our departure: Up up and away.

Once you take off, you are essentially neutrally-buoyant, the result being that when the jets are not turned on, you sink ever so slowly back to the earth as the air in the balloon cools. It is easy to go up - the jets are fired up and the balloon rises. Going down is easy too, there is a vent that can be opened up at the top of the balloon. It seemed to me that they had a method of steering the balloon a little bit, but I am not at all sure how the physics worked. At least they seemed to be able to make it rotate in place somewhat on command.

The feeling of being in a balloon is sadly indescribable. It is amazingly peaceful since you are not moving very fast at all, just sort of floating along. The jets of fuel are quite loud, and you can hear them from the ground. Luckily they are off most of the time.

The best part about my hot-air ballon ride was the scenery, which you can interact with at a level that you cannot if you are on foot. As you can see in this video and this other video, you get really quite close to the hills, at times it almost feels a bit too close. I never really felt any acrophobia, even though at times we were very high up, and could directly look down on other balloons and they looked very far away indeed.

Goreme is a mecca for tourist ballooning, and as a result there are so many balloons in the sky. I think one of my friends here said they saw 60 balloons at once in the sky, but I didn't count them - I was having too much fun.

Our balloon has a basket with four passenger compartments, each holding 5 people. So 20 people per ride, 100 euro per person, is a pretty good amount of income per day. Add multiple balloons, and you end up at a BMW. At least that's what the head guy drives.

Our landing was a little less smooth than the flying. Since you are pushed around by the wind, you are also at its mercy. The idea is to get close to your landing zone, drop a line and have a few guys on the ground pull you towards your proper landing location, all while using the jets to stay above the ground. If it sounds difficult, you are right. We got close on the first pass, but they missed us, so we floated further along the ridge, where they were able to finally corral us and pull us in. They then drove a trailer under us and we landed, and got locked down, and we clambered out.

After going ballooning, everyone also celebrates with a small glass of champagne, supposedly because that is what the Mongolfier brothers did when they landed in an angry farmer's field after the first successful balloon flight.

Other than the hot air ballooning, I have been doing a lot of hiking through the areas surrounding Goreme. It is perfect for hiking. A bit of up and down, but not too much, with fantastic scenery at every step of the way. And great weather.

What a lovely place. I will be heading to the south of Turkey this evening, to spend some time on the Mediterranean coast. It's tough to be me. At this point, the only thing that makes me sad is that I only have another 12 days before I need to leave Turkey.

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Comments

[Mom]

Incredible !
Ian, your photos are out of this world! They make me think of the Lord of the Rings. Now you can skydive next and I will fly in a hot air balloon next. :)