5:15... Wake.... Up. Argh. It feels like we've done this before....
Ok, I'm up.... And I can't wait!! A balloon ride over the area surrounding Goreme has been on my list for a long time. Luckily, Kim and Alex had once again done the research to find the best outfit and I signed us up six months ago - the company is called Royal Balloon and other than a great safety record, they also run a well-oiled machine.
We were picked up at 5:30 by the same kind of white cube bus that took us from the airport to Goreme, and the same vehicles that seemed to be buzzing all around the place that early in the morning. Obviously, other people had the same idea as us :-).
When we got to the office, they assigned us to a bus and table for breakfast.... Unfortunately, our group name was not on the bulletin board...
After convincing them that I indeed was the real Crarg Tryndall (all I had to do was bribe them with the exorbitant outstanding balance payment.... Ouch, that hurt). We had first breakfast, and before long were ushered into another bus with a different cast of characters - our balloon mates.
It took about five minutes before we saw other balloons starting up. The half filled balloons attached to the large baskets were slowing inflating, helped by the occasional burst of flame to deliver a batch of hot air.
Beth was doing.... fine. Not nervous at all.... Not at all.... Actually, I give her kudos for not rehashing a Google search on previous hot air ballooning incidents. She hadn't done that research in five months, so we are making progress here people!
And we were off. The wind was very calm and the clear skies were cooperating - Tyndall luck once again. Ali, our Egyptian pilot made the occasional joke while walking us through security procedures (albeit when we were already off the ground!) and giving us an overview of the area. It was fantastic! The view of the landscape, with balloons popping up and down all over the horizon was otherworldly.
I caught Beth smiling! I knew she was having fun! There were twelve in the basket (plus Ali in the middle), divided into four groups of three. The girls and I were in one corner, and Beth was with an Aussie couple, which was good - plenty of talk to keep her at ease. I thought of Jeffrey, Alex and Kim's older son, who had spent half his balloon trip rather ill on the floor of the basket - what a trooper!!
The sun was creeping over the horizon, and it warmed the cold looking desert floor.
We went up and down, in and out of valleys, soaring high into the sky, then down near the ground. We virtually kissed one of the fairy stone stacks that poke up all over the place.
The girls were over the moon!
The little valleys were really beautiful. It was a good preview of things we would be exploring over the next three days.
A nice shadow effect...that's me there Mom... The third shadow from the right.... I'm almost positive it is!
We approached a cool looking town built around a big, steep hill....
When we got closer, Ali told me it was Uchisar castle, so I put that on my mental list to visit later today. If you look right in the middle of this picture, you'll see the motorized paraglider that was zooming around us all morning. That looked like a good encore to ballooning, three out of four of us thought....
Down.... And up!
After about an hour and forty five minutes, we began our decent towards some farmers fields just on the edge of a housing development not far from Goreme. Ali told us to get in our landing positions, which was crouched down below the rim of the basket, all facing with backs pointing to the way we were heading, and holding on to ropes. I guess if the wind is very strong, you can have a drag landing (ie the basket flips on its side, people on their backs, and you can get dragged for a while). We had a relatively calm wind and touched down very softly on the ground, next to the trailer that had been following us for the last twenty minutes. Once our forward momentum had stopped, the pilot raised up the ballon just off the ground so the ground crew could fix the basket on the trailer.
When we got settled back on our own two feet, we were treated to a glass of champagne (well, a close subsistute from Turkey), chocolate dipped strawberries and cookies.
Cheers! Beth had that ecstatic/relieved look on her face... She continues to surprise herself - despite all of the worrying, she steps it up at game time every time!
And, as Ali said, as a reward for not dying, we got our very own medals! That was a laugh... We've talked a lot lately about the whole "everyone gets a medal" culture at home, and what happens when we get out of a two hour, high priced balloon ride? We get a medal!!!! Yay!!! Lol.
The bus picked us up and we were back to the hotel for 9:30, just in time for a wonderful second breakfast. As in Istanbul, the breakfast was a selection of forty or so items, so definitely something for everyone.
We decided to walk a couple of kilometers out of town to the Goreme Open Air Museum. The museum is a Unesco World Heritage protected sight. It's a unique, beautiful collection of churches, homes and living areas that are carved into the rock formations - most were built around the 11th century. The whole area is really cool - some say it was the inspiration for the first setting of the first Star Wars movie.
Each of the churches had frescoes painted - some were in such good condition that entire scenes and figures from the bible (I think....) could clearly be seen.
After and hour and a half, we had checked out the entire place. We went out the exit and stood next to an empty taxi, hoping an owner would come find us. Sure enough, an older guy came running over "taxi?!" and we jumped in. We were headed for the little town of Uchisar that surrounds the castle that we'd seen from the balloon that morning. The driver, Mehmet, was very chatty. He'd been driving for 42 years (!) and had three kids - a teacher in Bogrum, a dermatologist in Istanbul, and his third son was a restaurant owner in Goreme. Well, that solidified plans for tonight - we promised we'd show up for dinner, and he promised he would see us there.
Mehmet dropped us off at the entrance of the castle. We got our tickets and headed up the stairs of the structure.
The view from the top was fantastic. It was the highest point of the surrounding area (not much of a superlative really) and when the call to prayer started ringing out from the mosques surrounding the castle, I got chills.
Also of immense interest.....the selfies. There were so many selfies happening on top of this rock in the desert that I probably could have made a documentary on it. Robin was getting a kick out of it.
We did our best at producing selfie-ish poses, but it just wasn't the same with a "third party" (me) taking the picture.... Beth is NOT good at selfie moves....
I was hesitant to post this video, but Abby insisted, which says a lot about her. She can be so self deprecating, it's pretty cute. Her knees have been hurting any time we do a bunch of stairs ever since our Annapurna trek. We've tried to coach her through the fact that she's "getting old" and needs to stretch those muscles a bit (not to mention, she's so super practical she refuses to get new shoes despite the fact that her toes are practically coming our the front of her shoes), but she keeps "forgetting" to stretch. Here she is, struggling down one of the many sections of stairs in the castle....
We went to lunch in the little town surrounding the castle, and after we ordered, the girls got pulled aside to try their hand at poetry...
Luckily, Abby's skill at working the....pottery....thing... was so poor, the guys didn't even bother showing us through their showroom!
We tried one of the local clay pot baked dishes, which was great. We are having a hard time finding anything in Turkey we won't eat!
It was an "enforced nap" afternoon (well, no one had to force Beth) so I retired to the really chill rooftop lounge area to work on blogs and listen to podcasts.... Sweet. That's my "nap" - a quiet place out in the open with no one around.... :-). This little town really reminds me of our time in Jaisalmer - it's partly the surrounding landscape and partly the nature of the hotel.
I spoke to soon about the food.... At around seven, shockingly European for the Tyndall dinner hour, we headed down to Mehmet's son's restaurant. It was empty (warning sign #1) and had an odd little menu which included "Chicken in Owen" (whaddap nephew shoutout).
The food was not good. Combine that with the fact that the "waiter" (I'm thinking thie skinny, middle aged guy wearing jeans and a dirty plastic jacket hadn't had much formal service training....) was peppering us with all kinds of things he could make commission on ("want to go to Hamam?", "want to see whirling dervish?", "very cheap!!").
The food was edible, but not good. Luckily we had not ordered too much. We'd done our duty for Mehmet, but it was time to head out in search of second dinner - amazing falafel sandwiches!
Despite the misfire on dinner, we are loving this little town of Goreme, and looking forward to further exploration tomorrow.
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