Göreme Part 2: Sky

How could I deny Bryan his 50^th birthday wish, even though he just turned 46 and his birthday isn’t until June?  How could I miss the opportunity to take aerial photographs of one of the most stunning landscapes in the world?  How could I bear standing on the solid earth while the ones I love most rose into the atmosphere in nothing but a big basket topped by a flame-filled balloon? 

Suppressing my irrational fear of heights, and my rational fear of human error, I awoke at dawn and marched lock-step with the family - we bundled up, loaded into a van, picked up a crowd of jolly middle-aged Australians at their cave hotel on the Göreme hillside, and drove to our balloon site where we spent 30 minutes drinking tea, eating cookies, and watching our balloon technicians blow up the balloon with a couple of fans connected to a generator.

I really love the simplicity of the hot air balloon.  I loved how the old-school wicker basket looks like a gigantic version of the European picnic basket my mom used for outings when I was little.  I love the bright colors and clean lines of the balloon.  They look like a friendly figs or a party of festive light bulbs bobbing along in the air. 

I did not love the whoosh of the fire shooting from the propane gas canister into the air just above our heads.  I did not love looking straight down to the hard unforgiving ground as we rose higher and higher.  Better, I quickly realized, to look off into the middle distance and not think too much. 

Our balloon pilot did inspire confidence, which helped.  At one point, though, he spoke animatedly in Turkish into his radio, and the Aussies and I were alarmed until Bryan, with his mastery of Turkish, assured us that the pilot was just talking about his flight plan with the ground crew.  I was happy to believe him at the time. 

As our balloon finally floated gently downward near the end of our flight, my hands steadied enough to squeeze out a selfie with my loves before our crew masterfully guided our basket safely into the flatbed of their truck.  A once in a lifetime experience, for sure.