Cappadocia - ballooning bliss

This is being written on our fifth day in this area....I think it is the fifth, but at the moment I'm a bit brain and body dead through the itinerary we have made for ourselves.  The pace is furious as there is so much to see here and there are a lot of tours to do that we arranged with the package we bought way back in Selcuk.  We have done the main ones and there is one more sight seeing tour to go on tomorrow.
It's Thursday...the 18th or 19th...lost track.

To begin, we arrived here around 4 in the morning and had to wait until everyone woke up before we could check into the Peri Cave Hotel.  As we were driven into this town called Goreme, the fairy chimneys reared up on all sides, giving the impression that we had just arrived on some film set for The Lord Of The Rings.  Even though the place was deserted, we could see that it was a backpacker town a bit like Byron Bay.  Lots of cute cafe's and craft and carpet shops.

So first, you just gotta look at some of the pictures ......

On the first day we just looked around the village and then got an early night.  In the morning we woke to the sight of scores of hot air balloons silently rising into the air all over the town.  This happens every morning and quite magical.  The tourists in them are surprisingly quiet, and having just experienced the ride ourselves, we can understand why.

That was the view from our pensione, which is right across the road from the home station of the balloon companies.  While on the subject of the hot air balloons, we might as well do the ride we had this morning in this post.  We had to get up at 5 a.m. and when everyone was ready together (maybe a hundred people or so who booked this morning's flights) we all set out in mini buses to the launching field above.  The sun was still to clear the horizon of the hills surrounding this area.

Here is a photo montage of the impressions:  And I warn you, there were so many pictures taken, you will have to be a fan of balloons too....but I will try to keep to the best ones for you.

At this point we were already sectioned off into groups of sixteen for each basket, and when our balloon was upright and getting full of hot air, we all climbed aboard.  We were given our instructions should we crash land (!!!) and started to lift off.  All at once we were silently rising, the experience surprisingly peaceful...and sooo quiet.  All around us, other balloons doing the same, one by one.  Shouting or hooting seemed completely out of place so we just watched it all in awed silence.  The only sound was of the occasional roar of the flame thrower into the balloon to give it height.

We flew low into these gullies, sometimes drifting just over the rises in the land forms.  At one time we could have picked the fruit off a peach tree as we passed.  Other times we soared over ridges, revealing ancient abandoned settlements carved into the soft rocks of an escarpment.

Around this time, we rose up and caught some of the morning sun.  Glorious.

And so it had to end, didn't it.  The crews were waiting on the landing field and the manoeuvrings to land the basket exactly onto the waiting trailer was unbelievable...these guys had done it all every day for years and had it down to a fine art.

This is the pilot, about to spray us with champagne.

So the next blog will be about the Green Tour we took four days ago, which is interesting, but I will keep it a bit shorter than this one, as I did get carried away with the pictures.

Love to all you guys back home, and we will be on our way back to Oz in about a fortnight.  Still a lot to show you yet though....if you can stand it.