Cappadocia Hot Air Balloon Ride

The one thing everyone recommends when in the Cappadocia region is to go on a hot air balloon ride.  Having never been on one before, we accepted the rather exorbitant cost (I have no frame of comparison, but it’s a bit more than I’d usually pay for any experience that lasted less than 2 hours) in exchange for a possibly once-in-a-lifetime experience.  The van for Voyager Balloons picked us up from our hotel at 6am sharp and dropped us off at a small restaurant where we stumbled sleepily over to the hot tea and pastries.  Everyone sat around tables chattering, so we listened in while inhaling our sustenance. 

Splitting us up into two groups, we were loaded up into another van which took us to the site of the balloons, still lying limply on their sides when we arrived.  We watched with fascination and lots of camera-clicking as hot jets of flame brought the majestic balloons to life.  Most of the participants in our balloon were all part of a group, so they filled up one side of the basket.  We clambered in the other, along with our balloon pilot.  Our pilot and his partner did their safety spiel and we practiced the all-important landing position.  Rick sidled up next to me and whispered, "Are you going to be ok?"  I’m semi-acrophobic, so this was a very legitimate question. I answered, "I guess we’ll see in a moment." I had nothing to fear, however, for the balloon lifted up with a graceful smoothness.  My sister, who’d been on hot air balloons before, once said, "It’s not like you’re lifting up off the ground, but the ground is dropping away from you," which describes the sensation perfectly.  Soon, the entire snow-capped landscape of Goreme lay below us, still mostly in the shadowy grips of pre-dawn.  We oohed, we ahhed, camera shutters worked frantically, and we sailed over ancient rock formations covered in new-fallen frost. 

Dawn broke over the horizon, spilling golden light over everything, and then we flew high, higher, until we soared above the clouds.  A peaceful silence settled over all of us, only broken by shivering and the occasional snapshot.  Thank goodness the owner of our hotel advised us to wear two socks because the cold seeped through the bottom of the basket and soaked up through our feet. 

After about 45 minutes of flying, our pilot started bringing us down, hopefully somewhere near a waiting truck.  A hot air balloon pilot can only control the up and down direction of the balloon, so he had to bide his time adjusting our altitude until he could find a suitable landing area.  Soon, though, we could see the ground rising up below us and the pilot yelled for us to get into landing position.  In the tiny window cut into the side of the balloon basket, we watched as the level of the ground drew closer and closer.  We braced, but nothing could prepare us for the teeth-rattling bone-shaking landing.  Boom!  Bouncing back up, we hit the ground another 4 times.  By the end, everyone on our side was cheering and cries of indignation emitted from the other side.  Rick and I came to a stop lying face-up towards the sky.  We wiggled around to discover that the other half of our basket was completely buried in snow.  Figures covered completely in white clambered out and one girl said, "Oh, I’ve lost my shoe!"  A frantic search turned up her pink shoe about six inches away from her. 

For a while, we shivered in the foot-deep worth of snow by balloon, trying to warm ourselves by the flame.  Eventually, when the van to take us back didn’t turn up, it was decided we’d trek half a mile away.  We were freezing, but as we hiked, we counted ourselves blessed when we passed another hot air balloon from another company who’d ended up caught in a stand of trees.  Imagine that landing!  Finally we found our van and squeezed inside.  The girl who’d lost her shoe had also somehow developed an icicle on her scarf.  We slowly defrosted as our pilot passed around our certificates of completion.  The large group wanted to defrost further back at their hotel, but another girl travelling alone, Rick, and I decided we still wanted our champagne celebration. 

We arrived at their main office.  Our pilot, with much ceremony, uncorked our champagne and poured us all large glasses.  We cheered, we laughed, and cheered again.  Great fun, and yeah, it was a once-in-a-lifetime experience.