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Travelling in the bizarre tuff stone landscape of Cappadocia

At 5:15 o'clock I'm picked up from my hotel in Uchisar. We drive to Goreme to the office of Kapadokya Balloons™.
The sky over Cappadocia is starlit, the silhouette of the almost 4000 m high snow covered volcano Mount Erciyes shines in the dawn.

They serve coffee, tea and biscuits. The audience, women and men of all ages is international - Australian, Japanese, French, English, German, ... No wonder, we drive into a landscape which is declared as UNESCO World Heritage Site.
No one is really excited or even scared, most of them are probably old "balloonist bunnies".

Lars, the head of Kapadokya Balloons, has a helium-filled, black balloon mounted to test the wind direction. After a brief consultation with the pilots, the starting position has been determined.
This time we drive to an open field above the open air museum Goreme in the direction of Ürgüp.
The ground crew makes the two yellow-blue, ad-free giant balloons ready in time for the sunrise in 15 minutes.
It's 6:30 o'clock and high time to enter our balloon basket. Each balloon basket is occupied with a maximum of 12 people. There are only window seats :o))
Looking over to the sister balloon of Kapadokya Balloons™
A short hissing of the burners, a few bursts of fire and we take off. As in an elevator, it goes gently upwards with 5 m/sec. The earth gets smaller and smaller, turns into a toy world.

The two balloons of Kapadokya Balloons™are in constant radio contact. We drive towards Ortahisar with its mighty, striking castle rock. At a height of 20 m, we hover over the houses of the still sleepy village. The rising sun can slide the balloon shadow over the nested houses.
Now the class of a perfectly well-rehearsed pilot team shows up fast.
While the balloons of the other companies only stick more or less motionless in the sky, we pass through villages, wide valleys and narrow gorges close to the ground.
The farmers in their fields wave up to us. Unfortunately, the fruit trees at the beginning of May still bear no fruit, otherwise we would have harvested directly from the balloon basket a few apricots.
It's unbelievable how exactly Kaili and Lars can control their huge hot air balloons.
Sometimes the rock face is only 20 cm away from the wafer-thin balloon silk. For me they are the best hot air balloon riders in the world.
Clever that I take my super wide-angle zoom with me. The two balloons are so close together that I could not do anything with a telephoto lens.

In the balloon, there is a pleasant silence, no draft is noticeable, we drive with the wind. We hear the birds chirping.

It's a kind of hot air ballet, a lovemaking game that Kaili and Lars perform in the sky - an interplay of approaching, touching the balloon envelopes, one balloon deep down, the other high up and vice versa, always pursued by their own shadow.
Passing by the slowly coming to life tourist center G & ouml; reme, silently crossing the perfectly integrated in the archaic landscape, quaint hotels and guesthouses, we cross a swimming pool 10 meters high.
Then it goes through the Pigeon Valley (Güverçin Vadisi) with its gigantic snow-white columns up to U & ccedil; hisar. Kaili and Lars take perfect advantage of the still cold morning air in the narrow gorges.
It's almost like driving a car, we turn right or left into the nearest canyon.
Numeral of Gumelee greets the Love Valley (Ask Vadisi) with its imposing phallic fairy chimneys or, better said, rocks. The love valley you should necessarily zufusszalig; explore.
The excellent bird's-eye view of the crumbled tuff landscape later facilitates the orientation of hiking.

A butter soft landing of Kaili on a large field behind Uchisar finished the dream and suddenly brings us back to reality.
In pigeon valley near Uçhisar
A toast to Kaili, the best female hot air balloon pilot in the world
Group photo with Lars, Kaili and German shepherd lady Bex
Lars goes one better and ends up on the transport trailer, the ground crew has hardly anything to do. I look at the clock and can hardly believe it's 8:50. More than 2 hours have passed as in flight.

It is the most beautiful of all my previous hot air ballooning flights. With champagne we are celebrating the experience.

Many thanks to Kaili and Lars in Goreme for an unforgettable, perfect managed Hot Air Ballooning adventure.
Certificate when surviving the hot air balloon ride with success over the bizarre tuff stone landscape of Cappadocia
Still questions - then please join our Cappadocia Forum next page  Paragliding tandem jump from 2000 m high Babadag Mountain down to Oludeniz dream beach
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