Balloon Ride And Day of Touring

Bob and I were both awake well before our 4:30 AM alarm as we had to be ready to meet our driver who would take us to the location of our balloon ride...hopefully. I say hopefully because our guide said that the balloon rides are very dependent on weather conditions and could be cancelled right up until it was time to get in the balloons basket.

We met some lovely people in the lobby. One couple was checking out and said that their balloon ride was cancelled yesterday. The other couple was schedule for the balloon ride with us. Incidentally, they will also be on our cruise.

Soon our driver arrived and we were off. He was an excellent driver knowing many short cuts and detours. He had a bit of difficulty locating our balloon because he came in a totally different way to avoid a traffic jam and it was pitch dark. You would not believe the number of cars, vans, and busses everywhere!

Finally our driver parked the van and said to follow him. Most of our van was part of an Asian tour group with the exception of the four of us and the couple who will be joining us on the cruise. This was lucky for us because we knew that we could easily see over their heads.

The Asian tour guide called all of his group over to himself. The rest of us were wondering what we were to do. Soon, our driver called us over and loaded us into one of two basket containers on the very end. We were so fortunate because this location gave us expectional views.

The Captain then explained the landing process. We were to face away from direction of travel and duck all the way down in the basket. This is not as easy as it sounds because the Kerrs are BIG people. We were lucky to be in a compartment with the DeGroodts. I do not believe that they felt the same way about us since we took up more than our fair share of space.

The Captain then fired up the heating mechanism and after some adjustments by the ground crew, we were released and quickly swayed up in the air.

There were balloons everywhere. We were told there would be 600 balloons in the air.

We soared over many of the attractions that we saw yesterday. The Captain would lower the balloon almost to the ground and also very near the rock formations.

The sun soon came up and spectacularly shown on rocks and balloons alike.

After about an hour we started to descend. The ground crew had driven the trailer to our location. We watched in awe as the Captain perfectly lowered the balloon basket right on the trailer. No ducking down in basket, just an amazingly soft landing right on the trailer. We all our jaws dropped to witness this feat.

We were then given refreshments before being driven back to our hotel.

We will remember this morning as one of the most magnificent of our lives!

We had breakfast at the hotel, went back to our room for a couple hours to shower and pack. I got caught up working and we were almost late to meet our guide at 10:30 AM.

We stopped at the Kaymakli Underground City which is the largest and best restored shelter. It is surmised that Christians may have used these shelters to hide from enemies. This location has 7 levels but only the top 4 are available to be toured. We saw where they kept animals, a church, living quarters, kitchen, ventilation and water shafts. This was fascinating but not for those who are claustrophobic.

We did a bit of shopping outside of the Underground City before heading to our next stop.

We stopped for a coke at a restaurant overlooking the Uchisar Castle which is the biggest rock formation of Cappadocia.

We continued on to the Pigeon Valley which affords one a terrific view of pigeon houses. The people of this region built theses houses into the cliffs to house pigeons and protect them from predators. In return, the pigeons supplied fertilizer for crops.

As many of you know, I have been at war with pigeons in Arizona. They served no purpose in my life but to damage our roof. As a result, they are my least favorite birds.

Next was a fabulous lunch at a restaurant built in a cave. We had a meat stew cooked for 4 hours in a sealed clay pot. The waiter then heated the both the bottom of the clay pot and a knife then banged around the top of the pot until the top broke off. It was very delicious.

We had asked our guide if we could go to a spice market. He found a wonderful market and we again made more purchases which will necessitate us buying an even bigger duffel.

Our guide asked us what we wanted to do next. We opted to go to the Pink Lotus jewelry shop to learn about Zultanite. Jewelry may or may not have been purchased.

Sadly, it was then time to say goodbye to our extraordinary guide, Omar.

We were driven to the airport only to find out that our plane had been delayed by an hour. It has been a long day and this will make it even longer. We have an hour drive when we get back to Istanbul.

We finally made it to bed around 1 AM making it an about 20 1/2 hour day.

Luckily, we have nothing planned for tomorrow except to get to the ship.Read more