Check.
Seven colleagues and I hopped a flight Saturday morning and
took off for the area, spending the long weekend there. The first thing I
learned is that there’s not a city called Cappadocia; it’s an area, and it’s
got what is an utterly unique landscape.
The area is filled with “fairy chimneys,” formations made
from volcanic ash (compressed into a soft rock) that is covered by a hard rock
cover. Over time, if I understood this correctly, wind and water erode the soft
rock, which leaves skinnier soft rocks with hard tops. They kind of reminded me
of mushrooms.
There are all over the place, and some are big enough to
carve rooms out of, which has been done for centuries. Basically, they are
hand-carved caves. I can honestly say I’ve
never seen a landscape like it, or a city-scape like it. There would be normal
homes for the area, interspersed with cave homes or businesses carved into the
fairy chimneys.
Cappadocia was the land of the Hittites,
of Biblical times, and it’s mentioned in the Bible, in Acts 2. It was also
either the beginning or the ending of the trail of Christianity, depending on
the direction you were heading. And it was a place where Christians hid.
One of those places was an
entire city underground, which gave me the creeps. It was about four stories
down, and the tunnels were very windy. Fortunately, no one in the group got too
claustrophobic. I did bump my head. Hittites and early Christians were not
tall.
We arranged a tour through
Travel Refinery and got an amazing tour guide, Murat, who, when he’s not
leading tours, teaches history and wine and such at the local college. Boy, did
we get an education. He was incredibly smart and could speak on any topic
related to the area, or pretty much anything else. I didn’t know he was a
professor at first, but commented to a colleague that he was speaking to us
like we were his students. Come to find out, we were!
The whole thing was top
shelf, too. Our hotel, which was built into a cave, was pretty cool. I’ve never
slept in a cave before, let alone one with candles, comfy chairs and a big
bathtub. A former colleague had recommended the place – Kelebek hotel – and the
worst thing I can say about it was sometimes the wifi gave out. But I had wifi
in a cave, go figure. And the massage was nice, as was the breakfast. There was
also a cool hammock with a view of the balloons.
Oh, the balloons. The ride
was so serene. Murat arranged the tour with Royal Balloon, and we got the most
experienced pilot they had, Suat. We had two Australians in with the lot of us,
both female, so he had 10 women on his flight.
We sailed – not sure if that’s
the proper term or not, but it seems right – over and between the chimneys,
right after sunrise. (We had to hold off a little because of the weather, but
got off just after sunrise.) It was so beautiful, with about 70 balloons up
that day. I’d never done that before but would do it again.
After the flight, we had
Martha Stewart-inspired mimosas and strawberries. Really. Apparently she flew
with Suat a few years previously and suggested a different arrangement for
their post-flight refreshments, so we had rose petals among the champagne
glasses and the strawberries were dipped in chocolate as we moseyed in the
field after the flight.
The link from the show
Martha Stewart filmed is on the balloon company’s website:
http://www.royalballoon.com/marthastewart.asp
“The famous
American television producer, commentator, gourmet and author Martha Stewart
came to Turkey for the shooting of ''Martha Stewart Show'' which was aired in
the United States. Stewart came to promote Turkey with the invitation of
Turkish Ministry of Culture and Tourism and during her visit to Cappadocia she
had an unforgettable hot air balloon flight with Royal Balloon - Cappadocia. “Martha Stewart’s television program aired on Hallmark Channel on October 1st, 2010, where she talked about hot air ballooning, valleys and Cappadocia’s cultural heritage, which goes back for thousand of years. We thank Martha Stewart and the Staff of Martha Stewart Show for choosing us as their Hot Air Balloon Partner.”
Suat said right after the show segment aired people started calling from the U.S. to arrange tours. They’ve been flying balloons in the area since 1991; some couple came there and decided to do it, and it took off. Tourism there is down now, like it is all over Turkey, so it’s a good time to go.
I think it's a great idea.
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