3-11-20 - Ballons and Fairy Chimneys

When we checked into the Cave yesterday, the clerk told us that the balloon rides had been cancelled for the past 5 days in a row due to high winds (no balloons if the wind is higher than 10 miles per hour).   Our balloon ride was originally scheduled for tomorrow but on the advice of the clerk, we moved it up to today as the weather looked perfect. 

According to Fodor’s, Bagan and Cappadocia are the two best places in the world for hot air balloon rides.  In fact, it is often the subject of heated debates which one of the two is the best with Fodor’s giving the nod to Cappadocia.  With Bagan’s balloon ride on Kyle’s birthday a huge hit with the crew, everyone is excited for this one.

So no one gripes at the 5:30 am pickup time.  Since we’ve done it before, there are no nerves this time as we had to deal with last time in Bagan.  We stop at Royal Balloons office where they have a hot breakfast buffet all lined up for the passengers.

One of the employees finds me and says that the current price is 80 euros per person lower than the price we paid on TripAdvisor so we are due a 500 euro refund.  Sweet!  Not every day someone walks up to you and hands you $550.  We presume that the price drop is in response to people cancelling trips but either way we are happy with the newfound refund.

We take up half of the 16 person capacity balloon and there’s only 5 other French tourists to balance out the balloon.  Our pilot is Tolga, a middle aged Turk with a sense of humor that has us cracking up the entire 75 minutes.   By us, we mean the 7 people in our crew as the French tourists didn’t even crack a smile at his jokes the entire ride. It would have been really painful for him if we weren’t there.

As we soar above the valley of 3 million year old fairy chimneys, unique looking rock formations carved out of the lava rocks by wind and erosion. Tolga tells us it’s his first flight, he isn’t skilled at landing and we might run into the rock we are heading straight towards.  The other 5 tourists don’t say a single word. The teens snap away photos and video.

With the advantage of air travel, we cover a lot of territory including numerous valley’s showing off their own unique rock formations including red valley, rose valley, love valley, fairy chimney valley and so on and so forth. 

Tolga tells us about the rock formations and life in Turkey as Kyle peppers him with question after question.  The balloon landing is flawless as we gently touch down.  They serve us a glass of champagne (or juice for the kids) and we get our final pictures. 

We get dropped off back at the Caves around 9am. We have a brief hiatus and then get picked up for a full day tour of Cappadocia.  Originally we had the tour today and balloon ride tomorrow but by moving the balloon ride to today, we created a long, power day with the early wake up call.

Our tour guide is named Elif which must be a common Turkish name as one of Leanne’s business school roommates was named Elif and was from Turkey. However, Elif has long flowing bright red hair that is definitely not a common Turkish look.  Her English is flawless though and that is really the most important factor when your spending 8 hours with someone.

The first stop is Uçhisar is a troglodyte village famous for the huge rock formation once used as a fortification. This extraordinary rock is the highest peak in the region and offers a magnificent panoramic view of the whole of Cappadocia with Mt. Erciyes in the distance. Most rooms in the castle are connected to each other with stairs, tunnels and passages. At the entrances of many rooms, there are millstone doors, just like the ones in the underground settlements, used to control access to these places. A secret tunnel from the castle to the riverbed 100 m below ground, hewn out in order to provide the water supply in the event of siege, was discovered recently.

Cappadocia's most famous attraction is the Göreme Open Air Museum, a complex of medieval painted cave churches carved out by Orthodox monks. There are over 10 cave churches which when combined with rectories, dwellings and a religious school, form a large monastic complex carved out of a roughly ring-shaped rock formation in the otherworldly landscape of Cappadocia. 

It contains the finest of the rock-cut churches with beautiful frescoes (wall paintings) whose colors still retain all their original freshness. It also presents unique examples of rock hewn architecture and fresco technique. The area forms a coherent geographical entity and represents historical unity. There are eleven refectories within the Museum, with rock-cut churches tables and benches. Each is associated with a church. Most of the churches belong to the 10th, 11th and 12th centuries. 

We visit the Nunnery, the Apple Church, the Snake Church, the Sandals Church and the Dark Church.  We have to pay extra for the Dark Church but it is worth it as the frescos there are the best preserved as the church is only exposed to minimal sunlight. The frescos depict all sorts of scenes of Jesus from his birth to his crucifixion. 

Next we go to Pasabaglari Ruins where we see highly remarkable earth pillars in the middle of a vineyard.  Hence the name which means the Pasha’s vineyard. Pasha means "General", the military rank, in Turkish and it is a very common nick name. This site is also called Monks Valley. The name was derived from some cones carved in tuff stones which stand apart.  We see more rock carved churches and fairy chimneys.

The old city of Avanos, whose name in ancient times was Venessa overlooks the longest river of Turkey, the Kızılırmak (Red River), which also separates Avanos from the rest of Cappadocia. The most famous historical feature of Avanos, which is still relevant and very visible today, is its production of earthenware pottery. The ceramic trade in this district and its countless pottery factories date right back to the Hittites, and the ceramic clay from the red silt of the Kızılırmak has always been used. 

We got to the Guray Muze which is an underground ceramic museum which we know will transform at the end of the tour into a high pressure sales pitch to buy ceramics we absolutely don’t need and have nowhere to carry them.

An elderly gentleman leads the tour of the museum.  That it’s underground actually makes it pretty cool and it’s hard for the group to muster excess enthusiasm for clay pots and jars.  After the tour, there is a live demonstration of his co-worker making a pot.  We know, you must be thinking it would have been almost impossible to curb our enthusiasm as the pottery wheel spun around and around and you if so, you’d be 100% wrong. 

Finally, we get to the part we knew was coming. We end up in a room full of ceramics for sale.  We try the we’re traveling for a year and can’t carry anything else with us but he counters that they will ship it back to the US and it’s already included in the price.  Somehow it comes out the ceramics tour guide loves Italian opera.  We promptly retrieve John and he ends up singing and Italian opera song for the tour guide.  He is so excited about John’s song that Leanne gets guilted into buying the smallest ceramic pieces she can find. 

Next we are taken to a buffet lunch at a nearby restaurant.  We are told by our tour guide Elif that we can help our self to the buffet and someone will come by to get our drink order.  We avail ourselves of the buffet and after 10 minutes no one has come by for the drinks so Leanne goes up to the front area and asks.  “No!” she is told, “go back to your table and someone will come by.” 

The waitress finally shows us and looks annoyed as she takes our drinks order.  When it’s time to go, Kyle asks for the bill.  “For what?” she says.  Hmmm.  “For the drinks,” Kyle responds. Now she looks pissed. “Which drinks?  How am I supposed to know which drinks you’re paying for if you don’t tell me!” Holy crap with the attitude.  Kyle tells her he’s paying for all the drinks and asks how much.  She says 14 Turkish Lira so Kyle hands her a 20 Turkish Lira bill.  She promptly throws it back at him and practically screams, “I said 40 Turkish Lira and why are you giving me a 20 Lira bill???” Double holy crap with the attitude.  Ashley even confirms that she thought she said 14 Lira as well. When we get back in the van, we politely suggest to Elif that they find a different restaurant to take customers.

Our last stop is Love Valley with many more spectacular fairy chimneys that Cappadocia is famous for. There are hundreds of these cylindrical shaped rocks, created over millions of years by wind erosion. There are heart shaped swings lining the cliff overlooking the valley and Kyle and Leanne get some romantic love pictures. 

Finally back at our hotel, we enjoy wine from the outdoor terrace overlooking the Moon- Mars-like landscape as the setting sun melts into the fairy chimney dotted horizon. We eat dinner at the restaurant for the third time including lunch and dinner yesterday.  The kids absolutely love the food here as they have both Turkish and international cuisine.

After dinner, Justin brandishes his laser pointer to give us a star gazing show pointing out the different stars and constellations including Orion, Polaris, Sirius, Ursa Major, Ursa Minor and the planet Venus.