February 20th, 20226

Today was an amazing day! First off the weather cannot be better. We heard that last week was cloudy, rainy and foggy. Several times the balloons could not go up because the weather was bad. The rain comes back on Sunday but for Friday and Saturday, the 2 days we are here, it is clear blue skies with lows in the 20s and highs in the 50s.

Our day started off early, 5:45 to be exact. We had a 6:25 pickup for our hot air ballon adventure. There are tons of balloon companies in and around Goreme and they are all racing around these narrow streets, stopping at all the hotels, picking up their customers. The van we were in held 12 and when we got to the take off location there was another van with another dozen. Everyone was Asian except me & Kathy.

We all got out to watch them inflate the balloon. Kathy and I are lucky enough to have been on a balloon crew years ago in Reno, Nevada thanks to our friends Alan & Debbie. Kathy actually got to ride in the balloon then but I was part of the chase crew to help retrieve the ballon and get it all packed up.

As soon as the balloon was filled they start loading you into the giant basket which holds all of us. The great thing about the basket was it had different sections so you could only have 2 or 4 people in your section. We are sure they do this because of weight and you would not want everyone shifting to 1 side or another based on the view so we loved the sections. Before sunrise we went up and there were balloons all around us in all stages of flight. There are no open fields for the balloons. They just pull over wherever there is a clear spot off the dirt road.

I was a little concerned about the balloon ride because of my fear of heights but I don’t know if it was the excitement, scenery or busy taking pictures that I was not bothered by it. It also helped that there were no sudden ups or downs. It was a very smooth ride.

The pilot kept turning the ballon so we all got good views although there were no bad views. It was amazing to see all the balloons rising up out of the rock formations, which are actually not rocks but compressed volcano ash.

The sun coming up behind the mountain.

It was great sometimes being below the balloons and sometimes being way above them.

Panoramic

One of my favorites is with the iPhone. I took another 150 with my Nikon camera!

The ride lasted for over an hour and the pilot smoothly landed the basket on the flatbed. They had some bubbly grape juice and gave you a certificate and then back to the hotel by 8:30am.

We had breakfast at the hotel which turned out to be a giant spread of salads, meats, cheeses, bread, fruit and cooked to order egg dishes. It was a feast and we over heard 1 Asian lady on the phone telling someone she was having an “American” breakfast. We disagree since there was no bacon or sausage or pancakes, waffles or French toast. Definitely not as extensive as what we had at the Indigo in Bali , thanks to Merv & Michelle, but definitely generous.

At 10am our guide and driver picked us up. We decided to do a Tours By Locals guide for 2 days to make sure we hit all the highlights. The guide brings a driver because in many of the places we went there is no place to park so the driver drops you off and then comes back for you when you are ready.

Our first stop was the Unesco listed Goreme open air museum which is a bunch of churches built into the rock formations going back to the 3rd century. Most of the churches had paintings in them but photography was not allowed and most of the faces in the paintings were chiseled away because of differing religious views and concerns over idols. All of the churches were in caves.

I snuck a picture and as you can see the face is in place in the top pairing but the ones below have been removed.

This was a table carved into the “rock” with benches around it. They used this for their community meals in the monastery.

After the open air museum our next stop was for a hike in a place called White Valley, also known as Love Valley or Phallic Valley. Guess why?

You can see the people standing in front of the formations in the right picture. Our guide says that the structures that have a “top”on them last much longer than those that have lost their “top”.

Next stop was an old monastery. Our guide, Hami, explained that people used to live in the caves until the 1950s when the government moved them out due to safety concerns. After the people moved out they started using the caves as pigeon homes where they tried to attract the birds to nest there so they could collect the waste for fertilizer for their farms.

Some of the rooms in the monastery with paintings over the doorways.

The chapel in the monastery with its hand carved arches and columns.

We had lunch in Avanos which is known for its pottery and Hami, our guide, took us to a local restaurant that he takes his family to. As is their custom they put a big basket of homemade bread on the table with hummus, yogurt with dill, lentil “meat”balls and the red pepper spread. They also put a plate of pickled vegetables which was excellent. I had lentil soup and Kathy had potato dumplings. After lunch Hami asked us if we wanted to go to a pottery demonstration but admitted that they would push us pretty hard to buy something so we opted out.

Our next stop was to see the fairy chimneys which we are told the name means nothing and dates back to the 17th century and the French who asked the locals what the structures were and they were told fairy chimneys meaning witchcraft, to scare them away. Centuries later the name still stands.

The grouping off to the right will eventually erode down to individual formations each with their own top but it will take centuries. The term chimneys is also ancient and it is because the French saw smoke coming from the formations. The smoke was actually coming from the locals homes which were behind the formations and not easily seen.

Our next stop was to Imagination or Pink Valley. The name derived from the color of some of the rocks and Imagination because you can see all types of shapes in the formations.

They call rock formations “castles” and this is one of the largest castles called Ortahisar Castle. There are very expensive cave hotels at the base but not much else there and too far from town to do anything. We had seen the lights from our hotel last night but did not know what it was until today.

There is also a 12,851 foot volcano, Mount Erciyes that can be seen on clear days, which we definitely had. This volcano towers over Goreme and it is the ash from this volcano that is responsible for all the formations we have seen today. It is about an hour drive from the area and is a popular ski resort that is frequented by locals on the weekend.

Our guide said you could not see this at all last week which is hard to believe since it towers over everything.

We also did a stop at a local jewelry store which Hami assured us was not high pressure sales and in the store they explained all about the local stone Zultanite. It is found exclusively in a single mine in southwest Turkey. While the stone is not particularly pretty it has a unique feature of changing colors in different lights. In daylight it appears as yellowish green but under certain lighting can change to champagne, pink or purplish hues. There is a manmade Zultanite which can also change to greens and blues but the manmade stone will lose its color changing properties in 5 to 6 years. The sales man was very good explaining everything to us and we liked the fact that Hami stayed with us and asked us if we wanted to leave after we looked around. We did manage to make a couple of purchases which surprised all of us including the salesman.

After 6 hours, walking 7 miles and climbing 57 flights of stairs we made it back to the hotel. Hami said he was surprised we did so well and most people, after doing the early balloon ride faded after lunch and wanted to go back to rest. We chilled for a little bit and then walked back into town for some dinner. I opted for the bean and meat casserole which came out bubbly hot and we shared the local version of French fries which were shaped like potato chips. Of course this included the hot bread and 3 dipping items which is a meal on it’s own.

Tomorrow Hami will pick us up for another day of touring at 9:30 but we want to get up and out by 7:30 so we can see the balloons from the ground as they fly overhead in the morning.