My last overnight bus-trip, before our recent trip to Göreme,
happened in 1994: a 30-hour bus marathon down the western coast of South
America from Guayaquil, Ecuador to Iquique, Chile. I travelled the entire length of the Peruvian
coast, and my only memories are eating piping hot meals with rice and sea-food at
the many rest-area stops. The remainder
of the trip I either blocked or slept through.
Twenty years later, neither hot food nor restful slumber
helped pass time on the 9-hour overnight trip from Alanya through the Taurus
Mountains to Göreme, a famed “fairy chimney” town in the Cappadocia region. I was too busy keeping one eye on the kids to
nod off for too long. At 6am, Bryan,
Booker, Seamus and I stumbled bleary-eyed from the bus into the quiet chill of the
pre-dawn mountain town. To our relief, a
lone cabbie swam into view and pointed us down the street, indicating that the
Peri Cave hotel was only a block away.
In one of the typical confusions that result from language
and cultural barriers, we had to rouse the hotel’s surly, or maybe just sleepy,
night watchman, who promptly told us check-in starts at 2pm, and then led us
and our luggage to a dark and slightly dank holding room. Of course, Bryan had previously confirmed
that the room would be available upon our early arrival (always on top of the
logistics, that Bryan). Surly sleepy
night-watchman did not get the memo. We
shrugged and ventured out in hope of finding something warm to eat in
town.
The sight upon leaving the hotel stopped us in our tracks. The view was like nothing I’ve ever seen, but it had the effect of transporting me back to those days of travelling in Latin America, when I would find myself in radically unfamiliar territory (squeezed next to a sack of squawking chickens on the floor of a bus barreling through the Andes with my friend Melissa, for example), and be completely cracked open by the wonder of the moment. Right in front of us, just across the street, four then five then six hot air balloons, like gentle giants, were rising up between the fairy chimneys, dark one minute, glowing with fire from within the next, rising into the black sky with its first pink streaks of morning sun.
The sight upon leaving the hotel stopped us in our tracks. The view was like nothing I’ve ever seen, but it had the effect of transporting me back to those days of travelling in Latin America, when I would find myself in radically unfamiliar territory (squeezed next to a sack of squawking chickens on the floor of a bus barreling through the Andes with my friend Melissa, for example), and be completely cracked open by the wonder of the moment. Right in front of us, just across the street, four then five then six hot air balloons, like gentle giants, were rising up between the fairy chimneys, dark one minute, glowing with fire from within the next, rising into the black sky with its first pink streaks of morning sun.
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