BALLOONING!

Day #13 - Gureme (Cappadocia) part 1 - ballooning

Sucess! I achieve item number 6: ride in a hot air balloon! Yayyyy

Today was a super bright and early start to the day ...got up at 4:30 am to get ready for the hot air balloon ride. Yay! Ive kind of gone the bum route in terms of looks for the last couple weeks so fixing my hair for the first time in two weeks was a big deal. We were picked up at five ten by Kapadokya Balloons. We werent really sure what to expect but we definitely did not expect the super large number of people there preparing for their balloon ride ...i think more than a hundred.

I was getting a bit antsy because the sun was already going up and we werent in the balloon yet..but watching them preppare the balloon was quite a site to see...


Slowly blowing hot air into the balloon to get it to puff up...


More air...


We all jump in for lift off! (we were lucky we just had four to our section ...other sections of the ballloon basket had five or six ppl. Max capacity of twenty two in the whole balloon.



I have an extreme fear of heights, but for the sake of taking a good picture, im willing to brave it. Once we lifted off, the balloon rose really fast, to an altitude of 500m above the ground.




By the time we lifted off, there were already more than two dozen hot air balllons already up in the sky.





The view was amazing, and to ensure everyone got a good view of eveerything, the balloon was constantly turning so that everyone can see everything.




So there are areas all over gureme that had balloons taken off. A lot of these balloon companies rent fields to take off from, or take off from public areas, ie. First come first serve. They chose where to take off from depending on wind conditions.












The view of the rock formations, and the sunlight just touching down...was gorgeous...


Teresa pic!


Im not sure why but the yellow kept following us (even though you cannot actually steer a hot air balloon...the direction of the hot air balloon is completely wind depedent. I couldnt steer one if i tried. There goes goal #7.)



People got tired of seeing me take teresa pics (ie self taken) so they offered to take one for me lol.



The rock formations look like something out of a children's story book. These rock formations are caused by a valley at was surrounded (at one point in history) by three simultaneously active mountains. Somehow, because of volcaic erruptions, rain, erosion and other weather things i dont quite know the exact details, it results in the beautiful landscapes in these pics.


After an hour of flying, we just about land...we were looking for a rough landing so it would be exciting, but instead we got a perfect landing...





It seems to be a very lucrative business, considering its 240usd a head, and they took another bus load of people right after they got us out...lol


Ballooning was definitely a fun experience...one that i would like to try again someday. Though it was pretty romantic, so next time, maybe i will wait til i am not flying solo.


So many pics! And this was just the morning...

Location:Cappadocia, turkey