Ballooning in Cappadocia, Check

(all photos by Mary Hunter)

October 8th, 2014

This morning I realized a life-long ambition, or at least a five-years long ambition. When my fortieth birthday passed in underwhelming fashion I resolved to do something more memorable for my fiftieth. After pondering a bit, I decided a good way to celebrate would be to take the family ballooning. I resolved that in the year I turned fifty, I would take the family to Albuquerque for the annual balloon fest. I did my MA at UNM, so I had seen the balloon festival up close twice, but had never gotten in one of the balloons and had come to regret it. I decided this would be a good way to make up for missed opportunities and mark a half century.

A year or two later, upon casually discussing these longterm plans with one of Booker's swim coaches, she remarked that her parents had recently returned from ballooning in Cappadocia, and that kicked it up a notch. I soon realized that what I really needed to do for my fiftieth birthday was take the family ballooning in Cappadocia.

It occurred to me that the easiest way to accomplish this would be to learn Turkish, study Ottoman and Turkish history intensively, and apply for a job teaching history in Turkey for a semester. This plan worked out flawlessly, and four years ahead of schedule.

I could have gone ballooning with the students when we were here in Cappadocia a few weeks ago, but that was not part of the plan. I held off, and after a few more weeks of teaching returned to Cappadocia, this time with the family.

We traveled overnight by bus from Alanya, and got our first glimpse of the magic upon arriving in Görëme, the heart of Cappadocia, just before dawn. As we walked through the village, we could see the morning's first balloons beginning to rise, like creatures from the depths. At that hour, they are invisible in the near dark until the gas jets ignite, illuminating them from within. By the time we reached our cave hotel and rousted the nightwatchman from his impressively sound sleep and he informed us--with understandable vehemence--that check-in was not until 2pm, dozens of balloons were already in the air. And as we walked back through the village in search of coffee and pastry, we could see them glowing like bulbs in the pink and gray halflight just before the sun broke over the horizon.

We spent much of the day hiking the Görkündere Valley trail outside town, where Booker and Seamus darted among the peri baçaları and scrambled up to abandoned caves. At a trailside teahut in the shade of a quince tree Mary and I dozed on an old sofa while the boys played a marathon game of checkers with chess pieces.

And then this morning we got our turn, taking to the air in the experienced hands of Sultan Balloons, along with a group of spirited Aussies.

It was one of those rare moments where the longed-for experience fulfills expectations. We soared over the valleys and towers of Cappadocia, picking out the trails where we had walked the day before, the trails we might cover tomorrow, and the unconquerable crevasses beyond. Minutes passed when there was no sound but the occasional creaking of the basket as we floated on a current of air, one balloon among a school of forty or so drifting over the otherworldly terrain. Then the gas jets would ignite, like a dragon breathing into the silk, pushing us higher.

Too much transcendence dulls the senses, and when Seamus remarked, "I didn't realize flying in a hot-air balloon would be so boring," it felt like just the right amount of deflation to bring us gradually and safely back to earth.

I noticed, however, that upon landing he immediately pinned his complimentary Sultan Balloon badge proudly to his hoodie.