The Final Countdown. Day 5: Goreme

Wednesday 4 April will go down in history as one of the most amazing days of my life! What an amazing day. Let's start at the beginning.

After a pretty restless night (of course), partly due to me always being worried that the alarm will not go off, and also that some lady seemed to be locked out of her room and keep calling "Helloooo?", Dan and I got up at 4am to start getting ready for our hot air balloon flight over Cappadocia.

We knew this was never going to be a cheap exercise, but previously I had contacted a few companies to see if there was any way to haggle the price lower. Turns out not. However, in the mean time, the company we had chosen to fly with and booked through our hotel had upped their prices for summer to something pretty much out of our reach. I recontacted the company, and asked if they would honour their original quote to me, which they agreed to. And so we were fully booked to fly with Butterfly Balloons, a small but well respected ballooning company.

We got ourselves dressed as warmly as we could as it was only about 1C, and would be even colder up in the air, and after a call from the hotel reception we went and waited down the front. At 4.50am, a van pulled up, and in we hopped. The driver drove to another couple of locations and soon we had a full van.

Now, I had read that each and every company gives you breakfast (and that it's pretty shit), so I was pleasantly surprised when we arrived at a wooden building with rows of long tables, and fresh breakfast prepared. First though, we had to pay. We got to the front of the queue, and the gentleman requested €330. I started, as I thought something would have been written down about our cheaper agreement, and I had also forgotten to take a screengrab of the email exchange. "No," I stumbled, "I emailed..and..it should be €260 fo the two of us!" At which point, Dan in all his infinitie wisdom, produced paper copies of all my emails. Thank god. However, the guy behind the counter just shrugged and smiled, and said "I believe you!" and accepted our €260 without looking at the emails.

After that slight stress, we were through and fought our way through the crowd to secure a table. I joined the food queue, while Dan got us some coffees (it was very early, after all), and then rejoined me to collect some food. Breakfast consisted, quite simply, of bread (generally rolls, which turned out to be oddly sweet and salty at the same time) and fruit, strawberries, bananas and oranges, and to finish off with there were little cakes. Simple, but effective - it's been a while since I had fruit so I was very happy!

Soon it was time to leave the hut and make our way to our specified vans. When we had arrived, we had been given a piece of paper saying that our pilot today would be Mustafa. When we walked outside after breakfast, each van was labelled with the name of the pilot and so we found Mustafa, and hopped in. Turns out none of the people who were driven with us this morning were in our group, and we had a total of 16. One of the reasons I chose Butterfly Balloons was because they're maximum number in a balloon is 16. Other companies regularly do 20-24, and by having less people you all have more room (everyone has a spot on the outside of the basket) and also with a bit less weight, there's more fuel.

Once our van was full, we were off. We started driving out of Goreme and on the way, began passing balloons already being inflated on the side of the roads. Dan had said to me early, "There won't be that many balloons in the sky. It's not peak season." This made me feel really disappointed, and so I resigned myself to be happy if there were something like 10 or 20 balloons. I think we passed just this many being inflated on our short drive, and Dan and I started to feel the excitement build. Looks like there will be a few balloons, after all!

Our driver took us to an outlook that saw over the valley, and which was lined with Butterfly Balloons. We had some time to take photos, and for me this was a chance to practice with manual mode. The excitement kept growing, as balloons around us lit up with their flames in the still-very-dark sky. I could see the sky was lightening, and I was hoping we would be up there before the sun fully rose.

Time to get in! There's no door or hatch to get into a hot air balloon - you have to climb up and over. Imagine if a gate accidentally opened mid-flight! So the first challenge was getting in, which I did slightly more gracefully than I expected. Dan followed, and we got our postions next to the pilot in the centre of the basket.

In our portion were two other girls and in the portion behind us was a family of 4, who were quite adorable. I didn't really see the other people on our tour but they were on the other side of the pilot.

After a short wait while the balloon ahead of us cleared, "I don't want to crash!", saying our pilot, the balloon started to rise with a forceful gust from the fire. I was shaking with nerves and the cold and excitement. Even with the balloon on the ground, the view surrounding us was beautiful, and we were about to be up in it!

There are only two rules to follow when you're in a hot air balloon, as Mustafa pointed out.

"Rule 1: stay in the basket. Don't jump out!"

And Rule 2 was about assuming the correct position when the balloon was coming in to land, which he had us all practice.

And we were away. Words cannot really describe the journey. I had to stop taking photos occasionally and make sure I just lived in the moment and soaked in the beauty. First, the sky was a beautiful pink purple before the sun rose over the hills. I cannot count how many balloons surrounded us, at every conceivable height and every conceivable colour. Many were still on the ground being inflated, getting ready to join us in the air soon.

I took hundreds of photos and haven't sorted any of them - this is just from my phone.

Our pilot was a wizard, and would take us very low, and close to the rock chimneys, and into a valley, and back up again. He spun the balloon so everyone had a chance to see the view, which was constantly changing. Once the sun had risen above the hills, the view behind was golden. Ahead of us, awash with blue sky and vibrant green landscapes. All around were the famous rock chimneys and caves, creating an amazing alien landscape beneath us.

At one point, the father in the basket next to us - after Mustafa our pilot and navigated close to some rocks - said, "How are you so good at this?" To which Mustafa shrugged, and replied "It's my first time. Been about two hours." I laughed. Mustafa generally wasn't very talkative, but would point out important features and mostly just let us enjoy the serenity. Which was broken constantly by me going "OH MY GOD" repeatedly.

All good things must come to an end, and before long it was time for us to land. I had heard pilots could do this, but I never imagined that I would get to experience it - Mustafa was gearing up to land us directly onto the trailer. I watched with fascination as the ground crew lit little fires, threw sand in the air and flicked a lighter to check wind direction.

Mustafa asked us to assume the landing position, and we crouched down inside the baskets. A gentle THUD and we had landed, gracefully, on the trailer, with the ground crew quickly attaching us so that we wouldn't float back up into the air.

Amazing. We had to stay in the basket for a short time while the driver manouvered us so the wind direction was appropriate for the balloon deflating. "We'll be driving you to your hotel," Mustafa said, as we started being towed behind the car.

Time to get out. Less graceful than entering. Dan's dismount was amazing though - no one helped me out, but one of the ground crew literally lifted Dan up like he was a feather and deposited him on the trailers edge. "He's my elevator," Mustafa said. I thought it was amazing that I wasn't helped - but Dan was daintily picked up and put down.

I don't know if other companies did this - I certainly didn't see them - but once we were out of the balloon, we were encouraged to run and walk across the balloon to help deflate it (and take lots of photos doing so), and once it was flat, we all had to grab the rope and help pull it taught. Our balloon was packed up far, far quicker than any other balloon in the area, and it was a lot of fun to help out!

Still in the glow of the flight, we gathered around a table that had been set up with glasses and strawberries and cake. Our pilot Mustafa made a short speech, saying we had all "passed his test" and therefore we receive our certificate. He handed out each of our certificates, before grabbing a bottle of champagne and starting to shake it hard. It was champagne and cake time! He and another crew member continued to shake that bottle and then made it POP! I got sprayed as I was standing in the front - nothing wrong with eau de champagne, in my book!

I grabbed myself a bubbly and instructed Dan to take a bunch of selfies. These were a little less successful as I had hoped at first, and took us quite some time and so we were quite slow with the drinking. Once we had finally gotten some lovely photos, we stood talking to Mustafa, who has been a pilot for 8 years, I learnt, while we finished out drink. As it got close to the bottom, he asked, "Would you like another? Have more champagne!" And sauntered off to open a completely new bottle, and refilling our glasses. Another crew member popped another bottle and in the end, Dan and I had 3 glasses and a little bit more than everyone else (but are you really surprised?)

Mustafa hitched a ride back to Goreme in our bus and we continued talking on the way. Once back at our hotel, Dan and I collapsed for a little while - deciding to have our hotel breakfast as well. Once cbreakfast was being served, we walked down to the front, loaded up our plate with fruit, sausages and an egg, and went back outside to sit in the sun on the terrace. Breakfast was pretty tasty, and we had company in the form of a cat whose name turrned out to be Jennifer Lopez. Jennifer was pregnant, and very happy to take our food, but when I tried to pat her she gave me a good swipe and sliced my finger. I wasn't very happy about that, but oh well!

After breakfast, we wandered down to reception to actually pay for our accommodation and maybe book onto some tours. Our hotel receptionist is absolutely lovely but also a bit crazy, and he insisted we have some Turkish tea and coffee (one of each, each) and explained the different offerings, and showed us a route we could use today to explore Goreme.  We bought the "green" tour for Thursday (all day tour, more about that tomorrow!), and the Turkish dinner for tomorrow night as well - so it'll be a long day!

Once we were completely buzzing from the caffeine, we returned to our room and got ready to head out into the great unknown. First stop: the bus stop. On Friday, we will be catching the overnight bus from Goreme - Pammukale. I'm not looking forward to it, but it's cheap and basically the only option. At the bus station, the walkways were lined with different companies selling what looked to be exactly the same thing. I went into the first couple and asked their prices for our journey. 70TL, and a blank stare, mostly. We stood outside and pondered what to do, when a gentleman came up and asked us what we were up to. 

He was a proper salesperson, and gave us the journey for 60TL, and a lolly, and was far more interested in our patronage than another of the companies so we went with him. Pleased with our purchase, we set off on the route our hotel supervisor suggested.

Goreme Open Air Museum. So, in all honesty I came to Goreme for the hot air balloons. Turns out, this town is far more interesting than I had ever know. As mentioned previously, we are staying in what is known as a cave hotel. These caves are all over the landscape in the area, and for the last 1000 years people had used them as homes, temples, churches as tombs. The Open Air Museum has preserved some of the major churches and tombs, and allows you to wander through these tunnels and caves, many of which date back to the Middle Ages.

From here, we needed lunch, and wanted to explore what is known as the Red Valley and the Rose Valley. We were told it was easy and short enough, so why not? First we climbed up some cave pinnacles and had our picnic lunch - our sandwiches left over from the flight yesterday. Then we found a map and discovered a path down amongst the rock formations. It did warn that in places it was narrow and steep, but we dind't think too much of it.

Narrow and steep it certainly was, and intrepid! As we descended between the culmns, they got closer and closer together, and some paths were very slippery, or just required us to jump. Every so often "Red Rose" was painted on a rock to remind us that we were going in the right direction. I finally fell arse over, and slid on my bum down a hill for a while, favouring my cushioned arse to ripping my hands to shreds. I'll had a nice bruise tomorrow! This came about 5 minutes after I had said "Nothing has gone wrong, everything is perfect!"

Some of the path was rickety wooden step ladders between giant rock formations, and I had to steel my nerves to step over the ledge on many occasions. All the length of it, doorways and windows had been chiselled out of the rock, reminding us that once upon a time, an entire population used to live here.

Eventually the path flattened out, and more rock formations with doorways appeared. Some of them we could go inside, and we found a church very similar to what had been preserved in the Open Air Museum. It's amazing to think that people used to live here, and in another we found a two story home, complete with stone carved table and chairs and what was probably a hole in the floor to house a fire for cooking.

We continued along the path, and it started to get a little hot and dusty. We finally, for the first time, passed some people along the way - this whole time we had been completely and utterly alone. I couldn't help but think "If someone has set up an ambush..." but we were completely safe and alone. Just as we were starting to get pretty weary, the path broke out into a deep valley and we realised we had made it to the Red Valley and the Rose Valley, so named because of the colours of the rock.

We found a sign that said "Goreme: 3100m" and figured we had had a long day as it was now about 4.30pm, so it was time to return to our hotel. We did the walk pretty slowly and leisurely, as by now the feet and legs were getting a bit weary. On the way, we saw a horse and cart (which we had seen earlier in Goreme), and following behind was a young horse with a bell which would stop periodically, eat some grass, and then sprint to catch up to the horse and cart. Who know what this was about!

We finally made it back to our hostel and collapsed for a little while. We wanted to go to Sunset point to..well, see the sunset, but by now I was aching pretty bad and once we were ready, time was pressing! We attempted to race up the hill but I couldn't go very fast, missing a bit of the sunset. It was still beautiful and we may try to go back there either for sunrise or sunset another day.

I was starving. By now, I was desperate for food. Before we went to Sunset Point, I had researched places to eat in Goreme and happened upon a place literally 3 minutes from where we were staying called Omurca Art Cave Cafe. Now, the reviews were brilliant, but all explained that it was very, very strange. And had cats. Lots of cats. Only go there if you like cats. Also, it wasn't your typical restaurant - a man had transformed the front of his house into an indoor/outdoor terrace, and would personally cook you dishes from his specially made menu.

Everything about this sounded amazing and unique, so we gave it a go. Arriving, we were shown inside and opted to sit at a floor table covered in cushions. There was a cat here already, but when we came close the cat skittered away. This made Dan quite sad, but he needed have worried - we had plenty of cat attention during the night! After a short time, the owner came up to us with his menu hand written onto a piece of wood, and explained everything on it. Most of it was going to make me sick, but I figured what the hell!

We opted for a ravioli (I know that sounds Italian, but bare with me) which was apparently very typical for Goreme and Goreme alone, filled with cheese, onion and mint (!), and his speciality dish of beef with tomato and onion. I had also read that he made his own wine, so we got ourselves a bottle of red (I think it might have bee 1L). At this point I said something which confused him (I can't remember what), and next thing he has brought us fluffy bread and cheese as a starter.

Now we had food, the cats came a-flooding. In the end, Dan had two kitties sitting on his lap for the entire evening - at first they were very playful and desperately wanted to get to the cheese (and the wine, it seemed!) but Dan essentially patted them to sleep. This meant he was left reclined on the cushions and unable to reach the table, so I made sure his wine was nicely topped up! After a little while, the owner delivered the dishes to us. And oh my god. They were delicious. Each mouthful of the ravioli surprised me with the delightful mint flavour, and the meat and tomato combination was just divine - I can't quite put my finger on it! This was all mopped up with the delicious Turkish bread. The whole time, I was dishing up for Dan as he was a little immobilised with two sleeping kitties on his lap! At least they were sleeping now and not trying to get at our main dishes.

One was very young, male, and whose name I didn't catch. This kitty was a bit weird and skittish, and later when we tried to feed him a little he didn't seem to know what to do. Maybe he was a little hard of seeing? He couldn't find the food properly, or perhaps he was just so hungry. The other cat, whose name was Osman, was must more placid and just passed out immediately on Dan's legs. Across the course of the dinner, a fluffy tabby number joined the fray, and sat on my lap for a little while before joining the others on Dan's lap. In total I saw 5 different cats, although I think there were more than that.

It was such a unique, amazing, delicious and bizarre experience - and only came to about €20 after our two main dishes, an enormous bottle of wine and a tip. I cannot recommend it enough!

Absolutely exhausted and now a little tipsy, we returned to our hotel to discover they had been trying to call us - they had mistakenly booked us into dinner tonight instead of tomorrow night (and if it had been tonight, we had long missed it!). The mistake was quickly rectified and all was well.

It has been a stunning, sensational, amazing, long, fulfilling, intrepid, overwhelming, adorable, delicious day and I don't know how it could be topped! I am trying not to fall asleep as I write this, and so it is time to go to sleep. We are wanting to get up early to see the sunrise tomorrow morning...wish us luck!

Until next time,

xx