26 June, Göreme
Blue Moon Motel 80TL (breakfast included) (negotiated down from 110TL)
If you have never taken a hot air balloon
ride, add it to your “bucket list”. Except for those brief moments when your
pilot, seeking a favourable wind, fills the balloon with hot air, all gas and
flame and heat and roaring, you float in an almost silent world; float with no sensation
of speed; float with the breeze, a voyeur in a dream. Even if the terrain below
was dull, the ride would be worth it for its other-worldly feel. But Cappadocia
is not dull. So we took a magic carpet ride over cream and rose valleys displaying
surreal rock formations in the rising sun. Seeing at times to the horizon from
800m; seeing at times valleys in intimate detail with only a metre beneath the
basket and the earth; seeing ancient pigeon rookeries from which dung was
collected to fertilize farms; seeing Mount Erciyes pale in the
distance. Thank you to my friends and colleagues at
the Free Market Foundation whose generous farewell gift made this very special,
unforgettable morning possible.
Cappadocia from the air
Cappadocia from the air
Mount Erciyes
Cappadocia from the air
Cappadocia from the air
Cappadocia from the air
Cappadocia from the air - pigeon houses
Cappadocia from the air
Cappadocia from the air
Cappadocia from the air
Cappadocia from the air
Cappadocia from the air
Cappadocia from the air