The Ham Nomads

9 Jun 2015. <TR> Göreme, Cappadocia —

We needed to be outside the front of Kaya Camping by 4am — no, that's not a typo — 4am! We were on the dawn flight. We, and our neighbours in the campsite, Peter and Gillian, were out there wondering what we had let ourselves in for!

We were driven to a spot where we were given a breakfast — a drink, and bread — not much, but enough to hold off the pangs of hunger for a couple of hours. Then we were loaded into small buses and driven to the Kay ballooning site. We had expected about a dozen balloons in the air — well, there would be over a hundred.

The whole of this experience was so surreal. we were taken to our balloon, which was in the process of being inflated. As soon as the balloon had become vertical, we were loaded into the basket. There were 20 of us, and the basket is divided into four separate sections, so it was five to a section.

Our pilot, Volkon Ağbulut, gave us a short rundown of what we needed to know — mainly about the landing — and then we were off.

It's such a gentle ascent that you really don't notice it. We rose slowly to the maximum height allowed, 1000 metres. As we were rising, we quickly became aware of the number of balloons around us. We've never seen so many balloons in the air together — it's quite amazing!

We were taken touring the surreal Cappadocian landscape, from our maximum height to a point where we could almost pick the apricots from the trees beside us! We'll let the pictures speak for themselves!

The landing was interesting — Volkon almost put us down right on top of the trailer that takes the basket back to base, but missed it by that much, and we ended up mixed up with a tree. No drama — we had all been told to duck down into the basket on landing. But Volkon was given the branch award! After a champagne celebration, and presentation of flight certificates, we were all taken back to our respective hotels or campsites. A great experience.

Our landing site!

Volkon with his 'award'

After we had a bit of breakfast in the van, we went down to Göreme village. We were going to walk down, but a beep behind us, and the crew from the balloon gave us a lift down. Did we tell you that Kaya Camping is right beside the base of operations of Kapadokya Kaya Ballooning? — they are part of the same operation!

Göreme is fascinating. It's a lively village, very tourist-oriented — but the buildings are unique. Nearby Mount Erciyes erupted about 2000 years ago, covering the whole area with tufa, a soft volcanic rock. This tufa has eroded away, leaving large stone pillars ('fairy chimneys') and cliff-faces, into which, for centuries, people have carved dwellings into this rock. Göreme itself is populated with fairy chimneys, and each one had been turned into a dwelling, a hotel, or a church. It's amazing to see these cave dwellings, still in full use, intermingled with conventional buildings. One of the large ones in the middle of the village is an old Byzantine church, unfortunately closed at the moment for conservation and restoration.

The Byzantine church

The best hood ornament we've seen!

As you walk the village, you see quad-bikes everywhere. These can be hired to use for touring about the various routes about the area.

And the restaurants — everywhere. We dropped in to one for lunch. We weren't that hungry, so we shared an omelette.

Then we walked up to the Göreme Open Air Museum, the site of an early monastery. There are a number of churches here, all dug into the rock, and many of them contain vivid frescoes dating to around the ninth century. Unfortunately, photography is not allowed within most of the churches, so you will have to go to various websites to see them. [ 1, 2 ]

The nunnery

The history of Christianity in Anatolia is fascinating — apparently in the second century, this was a major hub from which Christianity ultimately spread world-wide. This is why many of the early saints came from this region.

After wandering the site for a couple of hours, we walked back to the campsite (only 500 metres or so up the hill) and settled in for the night.

Distance driven — today, nil; to date, 21,829 miles ( 35,131 km )