Sun comes up, sun goes down

A 4.30am start was a rude awakening this morning. We were picked up from our hotel and taken into town for a light breakfast, which was mostly chocolate biscuits, before being bundled into a van and driven to the launch site.

There were so many balloons in various stages of preparation for take off. Literally everywhere. After locating our balloon, which seemed to be hidden away at the base of the mountain, we were given a quick safety briefing which consisted of the brace position if we had an emergency landing and don’t jump out. We then climbed in the basket and took off.

Floating in a hot air balloon is such an amazing feeling. We are both not the greatest with heights but there was no real problems up in the balloon. We took off on the other side of the mountain from Goreme and once we cleared the top all you could see were balloons everywhere. There are about 150 balloons flying on any given day, it is an incredible sight.

We took off before dawn and got to see the sunrise over an amazing landscape while floating up above the mountains and then descending into valleys and brushing over fields of grape vines. I could write for ages about it, but will let the pictures do the talking.

After an hour and 40 minutes, we landed back on the trailer, great parking from Bektaş our pilot! We were fed mimosas and dropped

back at the hotel by 8am. Time for a sleep before catching the end of breakfast. One of the best days on tour so far.

Leaving again just after midday, we headed to the Goreme Open Air Museum. This is a collection of churches carved into the soft volcanic rock that the region is made from. Back in the days of the Roman empire, Christians were outcasts as the religion was illegal. In some areas of (what is modern day) Syria and Iraq their communities were tolerated so they were able to build reasonable towns, in Cappadocia they were persecuted. Around Kaysari the Christian refugees set up towns in the hills were they lived in underground cities so they could hide from their attackers. These churchs and other buildings are from that time, around 200 to 300 AD. It’s incredible to see the general will of these people to survive and protect their beliefs. People can adapt to survive some extremely adverse conditions.

After some lunch and playing with a donkey and some horses, we decided to take one of the walking trails back to town. Turkey is very loose with their signage and this was no exception. The trails really aren’t signposted and the maps are so old and yellowed they are no help at all. After finding one of the valleys we followed the track until it split in three with no signage. We picked one and started following it up the valley. We passed some farms and orchards, which all had big angry dogs guarding them, and then the track became harder and harder to follow. After persisting for a while, we decided it was probably better to head back than spend a night in the valley.

We made it back to town and walked up a hill to the sunset spot. We were rather early so sat around and watched some tourists get photos and go for rides on a very unhappy camel. When we couldn’t stand the angry camel noises anymore we walked around the bluff and found a spot to sit and watch the sunset. Turns out we made a

great choice as a photography trip set up all of their tripods around where we were sitting. Amazing view of the sun going down after watching it come up from a balloon in the morning. Absolutely magical day.