Air, Landier, and Sea

Really, it was about 150 hot air balloons, all filling the sky over Love Valley. We got the go ahead at 5AM this morning, and we were all thrilled! Although we’ve already done hot air balloon rides in Kenya, Capadocia is one of the places to balloon.

The first 100 balloons went up about 20 minutes before us, filling the sky at all levels.

We then ascended and made our way through Love Valley, getting what seemed to us to be incredibly (some may say dangerously) close to the stone peaks. Our pilot quite enjoyed some of the nervousness shared by his passengers.

We soared for about an hour, this time reaching 5,000 feet (much higher than our balloon in Kenya). Unlike the balloons in Kenya, Turkish balloons (or at leas the ones we were in) don’t have seats or seat belts.

There were 24 people in our basket, 6 in each smaller quadrant. Our landing position consisted of the ladies sitting on their spouse’s lap, while the spouse basically squatted as low as possible. Needless to say, we were all pretty worried for landing after experiencing our bumpy ride in Kenya.

But to our surprise, we not only landed with the basket upright, we didn’t even have to get into landing position because the winds were so calm.

And, we even landed on the flatbed attached to the truck that brought us back to the buses for a quick champagne toast.

Our pilot was incredibly skilled, plus, he had the help of his ground crew guiding him onto the flat bed.

We got a kick out of the fact that you could only see the ground crew from our side of the basket, so half of our group was purely amazed at our pilots landing accuracy with a balloon that can literally only be steered up and down.

After another early morning start, we had time for rest and relaxation. Then we were driven to an old Greek town. There’s a lot of history between the Turks and Greeks. Our guide told us that relations between Greece and Turkey now is not bad. He said it this way:

“If you ask my grandfather what he thinks of Greeks he would say ‘I hate them!’ If you ask my father he would say ‘I don’t like them’. Now, if you ask me I’d say ‘I have no problem with the Greeks.’ And if you asked my daughter, she would say, ‘Where’s Greece?’”

All that to say, sometimes peace takes time, but it can come and hatred doesn’t need to be passed from generation to generation.

We enjoyed the most amazing lunch made by 8 different Turkish women. These women not only love to cook, but love to compete! So we got a card with each dish and each cook’s name. Our task was to rank each dish from 1-10, and the woman with the most points would win.

This may have been our toughest task because all the food was delicious! It was hands down my favorite meal in Turkey (and Turkish food is excellent).

We enjoyed Turkish soup, stuffed grape leaves, Turkish ravioli, beef and garbanzo beans, pottery kebab, rice, cheese pastry, and baklava.

My favorites were the grape leaves, beef and garbanzo beans and the rice. Bryce’s favorites were the beef and garbanzo beans, ravioli, and grape leaves.

In the end, the overall winner was… the rice!

Yes, all that incredibly time consuming, painstaking prep of rolled grape leaves, hand made raviolis, and perfectly baked pastry and rice was the winner.

It honestly was the best rice I’ve ever had in my life and I have no idea how she made it- no special spices or anything. Just plain white rice with a magical buttery taste.

There wasn’t just competition amongst the ladies during lunch.

At the hotel our group had a Turkish barber brought in for the men to get hair cuts and straight razor shaves. The previous evening someone asked Bryce if he would shave his beard for charity. Since Bryce has a heart of gold and loves to help others, he agreed.

So during lunch the bidding began! People all wrote down their donation pledges. By the time we returned to the hotel, we raised a total of $20,000 for Children’s of Alabama!

And then Bryce got his shave!

Now no one on the trip recognizes him (including me at times), but he looks great and did it for an even greater cause!

One of the incredible things about this trip is the truly wonderful people we’ve got to experience this all with. Everyone is so generous, kind-hearted, loving, fun, and people we are so honored to get to call new friends!

I was so touched by this whole experience- from Bryce’s willingness to part with the beard to the generosity of everyone on this trip! Such a blessing to be part of this whole experience- words don’t do it justice.

Since this is really our final night before most people head home, we really did it up!

We all got traditional Turkish outfits and had dinner at someone’s cave home that he rents out for events.

The performers were absolutely spectacular! It was such a dazzling way to celebrate the ending of an amazing life experience!

We still have one more day with our group, which will be more low key, and then we will enjoy a few days in Switzerland just the two of us.