Yet
another disturbed night’s sleep. At 2:00 Jane was worried about Smarty,
although it was far from clear what she was worried about. As usual, she was
soon sound asleep, probably never having been awake. I wasn’t. Hopefully, it
was brought on by anxiety over today’s balloon flight and won’t be a recurring
theme now we are both sleeping indoors again.
Seeing
the sunrise from a hot air balloon necessitated an early start to the day. We
were both awake 5 minutes before our alarm was due to go off at 4:15. We
showered, dressed and were waiting at the camping ground gate 5 minutes before
our pick up time of 4:40. It was still very dark but there was no hint of rain and the sky appeared to be clear. We took the last empty seats in the minibus alongside the driver who took us a short distance north out of Göreme before turning off and stopping at a
small café. There, cakes, biscuits and tea and coffee were laid on for our
breakfast. By now the first light of dawn was visible over the hills in the
east. In the distance we could see the glow of burners as balloons we being inflated.
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| Waiting For The Minibus At 4:35 am |
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| Breakfast |
At
5:30 we boarded the minibus again for a short drive down a track passing a number of
balloons being inflated, they resembled giant slugs as their envelopes began to take shape. Some of our group was
dropped off at one of the Kaya balloons, the remainder of us at another. The
inflation process of ours was well advanced and it wasn’t long before the 20
person basket was upright. Dawn was breaking as we clambered into the basket
with the aid of step ladders. Emre Öztürk, our young pilot, gave us a briefing
on how to position ourselves for the landing. We seemed all ready to go when Emre
announced he had eight passengers on one side of his central area in the basket
and ten on our side. He needed to balance that up and asked if there was a single
person on our side. There wasn’t and no-one was volunteering to move. I was at
the end of the basket and said I would do it, clambered out and back in again
at the other end. There was plenty of room there thanks to the three petite
Japanese women in that quarter of the basket. In fact, they were so petite, I thought Jane could have joined me and the basket would still be balanced.
The
ground gas cylinder was disconnected, the burner fired up as the ground crew
hung on to the basket. It looked as though we were going this time. We weren’t,
Emre announced there were two additional passengers on their way. That meant I
could return to the other end of the basket which generated a round of applause
from the other passengers, a French guy said it was for taking one for the
team. We had quite a wait for the two additional passengers by which time dawn
had broken and virtually all the other balloons in our area had taken off.
Two
Japanese tourists arrived eventually to a round of applause from us all. Then
we were off. It was absolutely magical climbing slowly northwards just clearing
some trees and drifting past one of the tuff outcrops that had been home to
someone. We stayed low initially passing the village of Çavuşin with its cave
dwellings in the cliff face above the village where another balloon seemed to
be threading its way through the streets. A cock crowed as we passed overhead.
From
time to time Emre turned the balloon using the turning vents so that all the
passengers got to see all the views.
To
the south west the sky was packed with balloons. Emre said the maximum number
permitted on any day was a hundred, today there were 70 to 80 flying. While it
seemed chaotic Emre was on the radio constantly talking to other balloons nearby,
their registrations visible on the top and sides of their envelopes. North of Çavuşin we climbed
initially to 500 metres where the wind at that level took us south west over Love Valley
where some balloons seemed to be lower than the valley rim. Ahead of us there
was a knot of five balloons that seemed to be touching. We reached a maximum of
600 metres above the ground.
We
descended into Love valley and then into a blind canyon where the noise of the
burners startled rabbits. A burst of burning lifted us clear of the canyon and
just clear of trees on its top. We skimmed over a basket of a balloon that had
landed getting lots of waves from its passengers. We were drifting towards power
lines but Emre was on to it. Another burn saw us safely over and then we drifted
slowly over grassland as we came in for our landing. Emre said there was no
need to adopt the brace position we had practiced earlier which didn’t stop a
woman in my compartment doing it anyway. Three slight bumps and we were down.
The ground crew hung on to the basket while a driver brought a trailer
alongside. Emre gave the burner a tweak to lift us slightly and the ground crew
pulled the basket over the trailer. Emre opened the parachute vent at the
top of the envelope which started to deflate as the hot air escaped. We settled
on the trailer and the ground crew shouted ‘well done pilot’. Certainly it was
a much better effort than Jane had seen yesterday when a Kaya balloon landed
near the camping ground and they had seven attempts to get it on the trailer.
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| Happy, Or What! |
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| 5 Balloons In A Huddle |
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| Fairy Chimneys From Above |
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| Starting To Descend |
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| Very Low Now |
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| Parachute Vent Opening Once We Were On The Trailer |
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| Ground Crew Pulling The Canopy Over |
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| Down |
The
minibus took us back to Kaya camping and we were sitting outside Mabel by
07:45. The flight, getting us to the balloon and back, breakfast and the
celebration were very professional. Everything ran extremely smoothly and it
all felt very safe. It had taken just three hours for what we felt would be the
most memorable experience of the whole trip.
Jane
had been very nervous prior to us taking off but her nerves evaporated
completely as soon as we left the ground. She had been concerned that she would
feel unsafe in a wicker basket high above the ground, but because the ascent
was so gentle there was no real sensation we were climbing and by the time we
got up to 600 metres she was feeling very comfortable.
We
chilled out back at Mabel for a few hours talking endlessly about our flight.
It had been superb. Yasar came to see us asking how the flight had gone. He
told us it was unlikely Ahmet would be visiting the camping ground before we
left, but he knew where he worked in nearby Ortahisar and gave us a piece of
paper with the name of the business – Demicri which as far as we could make
out produced wrought iron screens, gates, etc.
Later
in the morning we drove into Göreme where we stopped to buy a bottle of raki
for Ahmet. Then we drove on to Uçhisar where we wanted to visit the castle
standing high on a hill overlooking the surrounding plains. According to our
guide book the village is very popular with French tourists. That became
apparent when I received a “merci monsieur” when I paid to park Smarty.
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| Uçhisar |
We
started walking towards the castle but only got as far as a pottery shop where
the owner invited us in for çhay. Over our tea we got a demonstration from the
owner’s cousin of how pottery is made. Dressed in a spotless white shirt and pink trousers, the cousin sat at a potters wheel that he turned
with his feet. In
next to no time he produced the lid for a sugar bowl and then the bowl itself.
Tradition had it that a potter couldn’t marry until he had produced a sugar
bowl with a lid that was a perfect fit, and it all had to be done by eye. Come
the moment of truth his lid was a perfect fit. Then he sliced the bowl in half
vertically to show the walls were of absolutely uniform thickness. All very
impressive, but it had taken him 19 years to achieve that proficiency.
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| Pottery Demonstration |
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| Lid Is A Perfect Fit |
Next we got a conducted tour of the shop which was a series of caves that had originally been a number of houses. Each room contained different styles of pottery that included Ottoman decorated with tulips and roses, Hittite which included the unique circular ring wine jug, and many more.
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| Jane And Pottery Shop Owner |
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| Hittite Wine Jugs |
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| Lots Of Rooms Like This Stacked With Pottery |
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| Here's Another One |
As
has happened on many previous occasions on our travels, we had set off with no intention of
buying anything but ended up with objects that it suddenly became important to own. And
as had happened in the past, we got it all at a “special price”. The reason
this time was the marked prices included the commission for guides that brought
customers in to the shop. If that was true, the guides make a very good living indeed. We haggled
a bit, got a ‘free’ cup and saucer thrown in and left the shop half an hour
later with bowls, plates and a miniature Hittite wine jug. Actually, we didn’t,
the owner agreed to look after them while we visited the castle and had lunch.
Like
Ortahisar which we visited yesterday the 60 metre high rock and the castle on top
once housed the entire village. That at Uchisar was in a much better state and
we had no difficulty in climbing to the top.
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| Inside The Rock |
We
ate lunch at a café off the main square. We both ordered rice and a stew of onions
peeper and garlic, mine came with some average beef while Jane had some good
chicken.
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| Leaving, Having Collected Our Pottery |
We
collected our pottery, managing to resist the offer of more tea, and drove to Ortahisar
to find Ahmet. Yasar’s directions took us to a large yard full of trucks and
that didn’t seem right. We drove around the village for a long time before I
pulled over and showed Yasar’s note with “Ahmet” and “Demicri” to three men
sitting outside a café. They recognised the names and gave us directions which
took us back to the yard full of trucks. This time we went in and a couple of
men came over. I showed them the note and they led us to a small metal
fabrication shop. The only person there was a young plump guy wearing very
greasy overalls. The two men spoke to him, Ahmet wasn’t there today. The dumpy
man made a call on his mobile, hung up and grinned at the four of us but said
nothing. He gave me the appearance of not playing with a full deck and the
shrugs and raised eyebrows of the two helpful guys seemed to confirm my
diagnosis. They asked if we wanted coffee, we didn’t so they took my mobile
back to the plump one and keyed in Ahmet’s number for me. He was in Göreme but
could meet us at Kaya Camping in 20 minutes.
Ahmet
beamed when he saw the bottle of raki, but didn’t look quite so pleased when I asked if
he could share it with the others that helped us. At Yasar’s suggestion we all
sat down under an umbrella. We talked for a while and then Ahmet said something
in Turkish which Yasar translated as Ahmet wanted to go home now! We thanked him
again and said goodbye.
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| Jane And Ahmet |
After
snacking on bread and cheese we did some more Stuff NZ trivia quizzes. One
question had a photograph of Chris Martin who I learnt yesterday was dating
Jennifer Lawrence. I said to Jane that this Chris Martin wasn’t the Auckland
and NZ fast bowler. She collapsed into a fit of laughter and it was a while
before she was well enough to resume the quiz. “Why”, she asked, would a
Hollywood star be dating a cricketer”. A fair point, I thought, but I only knew
one Chris Martin.
We
reflected on our day. We didn’t think anything was going to come near the exhilaration of the balloon flight on our trip. Turning to the pottery, the cynic in me wondered whether the pottery shop
actually made any of the pots there. The bowls we purchased looked very similar,
but more expensive, than those Jane had bought yesterday in Göreme. Clearly,
the cousin that made the sugar bowl was very skilled, but did he still make
pots? There was no sign of a kiln or potters wheels, except for that used for
the sugar bowl demonstration. So, were they simply buying stuff in and selling
it on? I reminded Jane that we bought a carpet in Ait Benedu in Morocco that was supposedly made by women in the village. We never did get to see women knotting
carpets and were told subsequently that the business belonged to guys in
Marakech who bought the carpets in. It didn’t really matter, we were happy with
what the pottery we had bought and the price we paid.
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