Hot Air Balloon in Cappadocia
Monday morning we took a flight out of Istanbul airport further into the interior to the Cappadocia region where we would be for the next few days. I hadn’t done a lot of research ahead of time so I wasn’t really sure what to expect. The flight was comfortable and short and we landed at Nevesehir airport within a few hours. Its pronounced like “Kapadokya” and was spelled that way on many signs around the area. The geological structure and colors were an obvious change from Istanbul as we flew in. I was pretty sure I could see a volcano as well. It turns out the volcanoes are what creates the unique rock formations.
The hotel we stayed at was in Goreme. It was called The Sultan Cave Suites and actually rather nice. Much more comfortable beds than the previous place and cooler at night. It was kind of up on a hill and did seem to be at least partially built from a real cave. Cave dwellings are very common in the area as I would find out over the next few days. A man named Mustafa welcomed us and advised us on what to do in the next few days while we were there. He was a great salesman and spoke English very well. He said he had just returned after living in Nova Scotia for 5 years selling Turkish rugs.
We got up at 5:30AM the next morning in order to do a hot air balloon ride. This was one of the highlights of the trip so far for me. The balloons seem to be a big revenue source for the area, there were about 50-60 in the air at the same time we were up. At first the wind was too high so we had to wait, they actually inflated the balloon 3 different times before we went up. The third time we went even though the wind was a bit strong. The balloon pilot’s name was Mustafa as well. He said he’d been doing it for 7 years and was from Goreme. He had a sarcastic sense of humor. It lasted almost exactly an hour, just the right amount of time.
