Day 4 Cappadocia
This was the view every morning for those who were up early enough. Hot air ballooning is one of the must-do’s of Cappadocia. When I told my friend in Istanbul months ago that we would be going to Cappadocia, he asked, “Are you doing the hot air balloons?” That was the first I heard about. Afterwards I saw it everywhere. Rebecca spent a couple years in Africa as a kid. She vividly remembers how her grandparents came to visit and took a hot air balloon ride over one of the safari parks. Her parents wouldn’t spring for such an expensive adventure – and since then she has longed to experience a hot air balloon ride. Now was the time for her to finally fulfill her dream of 30 years.
And this is where I start to feel a little guilty. I don’t consider it a very wise use of money (there are how many refugees from Syria in Turkey right not?); I’m very conscious of all those for whom a hot air balloon ride is as unthinkable as taking a yacht trip (oh yeah, we were going to do that too). What relieves my conscience is that the money for these lavish adventures is not coming from our own pocket, but from that of pharmaceutical magnate Eli Lilly’s. Well, actually it comes from the Lilly Foundation, which is funded mostly by stock in Eli Lilly & Co. Some of the Lilly family feel that it is beneficial to the Christian churches of the United States to have healthy pastors and to that end they fund sabbaticals. My sabbatical proposal included the hot air balloon ride and the boat trip.
So now you see why this all really is a one-in-a-lifetime thing. We would never spend our money on things like this. But when an endowment asks, “What would make your heart sing? We’ll pay for it,” I”ll take them up on it.
Okay, so our sensitivity to responsible stewardship aside, today was the day for our hot air balloon ride. Here you see everyone bright and chipper at 4:30am, waiting to be transported to the launch location.
Before we get to the launch, I have a confession to make: I have a healthy fear of heights. Heights don’t terrify me, but they do make me nervous. Half the family shares my unease, half doesn’t. The half that isn’t afraid of heights makes the other half of us sick by bouncing up to the edges of cliffs, leaning over railings, and tossing things over ledges. So how was it going to feel looking down from a hot air balloon? And how was t going to feel to have my children hang the top half of their bodies out of a hot air balloon basket for a better view? I thought it might be an hour of terror, or at least nervousness, but I wasn’t going to let that hold us back.
They split us up into different sections of the basket for balance and the pilot ran us through the “landing position,” with knees bent and bodies braced. Then up we soared up to join dozens of other balloons over the fairytale landscape of Cappadocia. No fear tickled in our guts. Just like flying in a plane.
After rising to 800 meters, the pilot let the balloon sink down and nearly touch the mesa the wind had carried us to. We floated just above the ground. This was the pilot’s dramatic move, because floating horizontally would lead us out over the next valley. Instead of the balloon floating up, the ground would drop away from below.
Our youngest was at this point sitting on the floor of the balloon. Maybe he was a little scared. Or maybe getting up at 4:00am isn’t his thing. We eventually roused him and he stayed in our arms for the rest of the trip. We floated down the Zelve Valley to some open fields, where other balloons were already landing.
That was the hot air balloon ride. Did it fulfill Rebecca’s 30 years of longing? Did it live up to every expectation? That might have been impossible. We all enjoyed it, but for those looking for the meaning of life or the fulfillment of your deepest desires, you won’t find it in a hot air balloon.
That afternoon we headed out to Avanos, famous for its pottery. I thought we might swim in the Red River too, but it was dirty and all through the town was fenced off. At the ceramic shop the owner said if the kids could replicate the piece the potter made as a demonstration he would give the shop to them. It looks so effortless in the hands of the master. And perhaps it is if you start at age 12 and work at it for 20 years like he has.
Oh, and we made a brief stop at Love Valley. Any guesses how it got its name?
Day 5 Cappadocia
We had done all we wanted in and around Goreme, so we checked out of our hotel a day early. This would allow us to spend some more time around Kayseri, specifically that fantastic volcano, Mt Erciyes. We managed to communicate well enough with the lone man at the ski lift and gondola to figure out that the gondola was closed for the day. That’s disappointing. But then after searching for a hiking map for ten minutes he told me the gondola at the other entrance was operating. So we drove over there. As we got out of the car my son who will one day win trivia contests said, “That’s one of the one hundred most dangerous things in the world, a gondola falling with you inside it.” Heartening thoughts as the doors closed on our gondola.
We rode and then walked a good ways. The peak was impressive, but the mountainside was not. What would have been a grassy slope was a gravel pit. I’m sure it makes for beautiful snowboarding runs, but it doesn’t make for beautiful hiking.
I left the family watching the formation of a stream from snowmelt to get a closer approach to the summit. The closer I got the more climbable it looked. I had read that when the first person on record summited in the 1800s he found evidence that plenty of others had made it to the top ahead of him. Some of the many monks of the area had made the journey, they suppose. I would have been happy to do the climb, if I had the equipment and either the experience or a guide. As close as I felt to the peak, there was still a gondola or ski lift that reached higher.
Dinner in Kayseri was interesting. The young waiter spoke no English, and his rapid explanations of the numerous menu options in Turkish didn’t help. I got Rebecca’s iPad from the car and used the magic of the google translate app. It’s like a digital gift of interpretation of tongues – you point the camera at foreign words and it transforms them into your language right there on the screen. Single words are no problem, but menus are trouble. I ordered something that involved “sheet metal.” Another item included rope. My meal did in fact come sizzling on a cast iron pan. Maybe sheet metal wasn’t as far off as I thought.
The next day we said goodbye to the captivating land of Cappadocia and flew to Antalya.