Travels of a Lifetime, VBlog Series: Ballooning Over Cappadocia


Series 4:  Ballooning Over Cappadocia
 
Comprised of the UNESCO World Heritage sites of the Rock Sites of Cappadocia and Göreme National Park, Cappadocia is located on the central Anatolia plateau in Turkey. It is described by UNESCO WHC as a plateau within a volcanic landscape sculpted by erosion to form a succession of mountain ridges, valleys and pinnacles known as “fairy chimneys” or hoodoos.  The density of its rock-hewn cells, churches, troglodyte villages and subterranean cities within the rock formations make it one of the world's most striking and largest cave-dwelling complexes.  

Click HERE to watch it on You Tube or click the thumbnail below.


It was early dawn when we left our hotel for a hot air balloon ride over Cappadocia. Our driver navigated through the labyrinth of narrow roads, and headed towards a hillside walled by rocks with doors before finding our balloon in an agricultural area. I wasn’t sure whether our driver was lost looking for our balloon launching area because by the time we got there, many balloons of different colors, designs and markings were already up in the air.

Suddenly, the sound of air blasts whooshed on the gentle morning breeze. I was surprised that we did not have to go through the preliminary procedures of signing a multi-page contract releasing the balloon company from any liabilities like the process I went through when ballooning in California. With no or very little safety instruction, eleven of my co-riders and I went inside the basket. Soon our balloon pilot effortlessly maneuvered through the Cappadocian sky above chimney stacks of pillars. Our balloon was among the many balloons that hovered above the fairy tale landscape.

Sunrise and sunsets usually have a special place in my travels, but I was so intrigued by the various scintillating display of rock pillars, cones, towers, obelisks, mushroom-shaped rocks and fairy chimneys that I did not even notice the effect of sunlight on the spectacular scenery until the golden light of the morning sun glared directly into my eyes. Everybody was so quiet throughout the ride, probably taking in the spectacular scenery. The stillness was broken only by the clicks of the cameras and the air blast whooshing sound as our pilot fed more flame into the envelope.

Our balloon hovered near the tip of the rock pillars that we could see the dwellings and storage carved into the rocks up close. We also saw agricultural lands and neat rows of cherry trees and bushes lining the landscape. Near the end of our ride, our pilot brought the edge of our balloon close to the tip of the rock pillars, so close that I thought we would collide. We gave a collective gasp when our pilot nudged us even closer. After a smooth landing, I began to realize that our pilot was skilled in his craft and probably the reason why the riders were given very little or no safety instruction at all.*




NOTE:  

*Kapadokya Balloons claim to be the first private commercial passenger hot air ballooning company to be licensed in Turkey and they have pilots with superior experience.
According to their website, they have the newest luxury aircraft, safest and most comfortable balloons available in the world today, and their insurance cover and safety standards far exceed that required by the Turkish, European and American standards.
 


Comments

Post a Comment

NEW POSTS

NEPAL: Durbar Square Before the Earthquake

Image
I was writing my blog about Nepal’s UNESCO World Heritage and historic sites very late last night (05-12-15 in Nepal) when I happened to check my Instagram and saw a posting about Kathmandu after a 7.4 magnitude earthquake hit Nepal yet again. I get emotional just by looking at the photos and videos I took from my recent trip to Nepal let alone a video of a chaotic Kathmandu. I must confess to telling a co-traveler on our way to Patan's Durbar Square that I was ‘templed out’ (the term I used to describe how I felt after visiting so many temples).  Who would have thought that the visit to that last Durbar Square and seeing all the temples that day was a great blessing.  I have said many prayers of gratitude for the opportunity to see and capture in films and photos Nepal’s UNESCO World Heritage sites and the irreplaceable temples and statues before the April 25, 2015 earthquake. The Kathmandu Valley is comprised of three cities: Kathmandu, Bhaktapur and Patan. Each city features
Read more

The Banaue Rice Terraces: A Living Cultural Landscape

Image
My interest in exploring the northern part of the Philippines started from looking at a piece of art at the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco, California.   Among the display of ceramics and pottery engraved with gold and other decorative stuff,  a wooden carving of a male figure squatting on a platform with the lower arms on top of each other, resting upon his knees, caught my eye.  According to the docent, the wooden sculpture was called "Bului" which literally means "granary guardian" in the "Ifugao" tribe dialect. The carved wooden sculpture was set on a platform on top of another platform, a mortar.   Our docent explained the significance of the wooden mortar (which was used with the pestle, to separate the husk from the rice, sort of rice mill) and linked the story to the Rice Terraces in the Cordillera Mountains of the Philippines built 2000 years ago by the “Ifugao” tribe. So two years and three hundred kilometers north of Manila later, we explo
Read more

Poland: The Wieliczka Salt Mine

Image
One of the most spectacular UNESCO World Heritage Sites I visited this year was the Wieliczka Salt Mine near Krakow, Poland. It was founded in the 13th century to mine the rich deposit of salt. Salt mining stopped in 1996 when the low price of salt on the world market made it too expensive to mine and the mine was slowly flooding. But miners did more than just extract salt. They left behind them a breathtaking record of their time underground in the shape of statues of mythical, historical and religious figures.  Part of the salt mine became an art gallery, chapels, cathedral, and underground lakes. Today, Wieliczka Salt Mine is one of the most visited National Monuments in Poland. For safety reason, less than one percent of the mine is open to visitors, but even that is almost four kilometers in length. There are 20 chambers to visit and 800 steps to climb of which 350 at the beginning take you down into the mine. You can’t just visit and wander around on your own. All of the visits
Read more