An exhilarating balloon ride over the canyons and fairy chimneys of Cappadocia, where we hiked yesterday. A surreal experience floating softly and slowly with a large herd of balloons like a weightless flock of air-buffalo. We get up at 5:00 to board vans to the takeoff point. It’s cloudy, and we wait…and wait…on the roadside near the site until the weather guys give us the OK to go. Wind and visibility conditions have to be right or it’s not safe.
It’s touch and go for a while, and we’re counting the wicker baskets and balloons that are being trucked in and out, to see if the crews are leaving the site because the flights will be cancelled. Some of us chant our mental tone into the clouds (a J-R technique that John Morton suggests) to dissipate them. I’m way out-of-body doing spiritual exercises, maybe negotiating with my devic friends or sucking up the clouds—I’m not sure what’s going on but I’m doing something, wiped out in the van seat. While we wait we can see all kinds of nationalities and races riding around on all kinds of vehicles—ATVs, Jeeps, motorcycles—starting their day’s exploration of the eccentric landscape.
Eventually we get the OK, drive through the mud roads and jump in the wicker baskets for liftoff. (Yes, the baskets are wicker just like in the movies.) It’s a fascinating process watching the crews running around adjusting the lifeless, saggy balloon behemoths on the grassy ground of the plateau, and seeing them slowly come to life like prairie bison after a long sleep. The crews seatbelt us in, the roaring yellow flames heat up the air, and we gradually leave the ground. It’s quite amazing how much control the drivers have over direction and altitude. At one point they bring us within feet of a few of the pointy fairy chimneys, with some short blasts of the flame lifting us just enough to prevent us from whacking the rocks. At one point we can see a Japanese wedding party with pink and red convertibles down below us.
Because we left late on account of the weather delays, it seems like they’re combining a few different shifts of the balloon flights, so countless balloons stampede lazily through the sky. The clouds are low so our balloon companions fade in and out of the fog, adding to the ethereality of our morning glide through the cool air. We look down on the same spires and caves that we explored, gravity-bound, the day before, but from an emancipated vantage point. You can’t help but smile and ooh-and-ahh during this new experience of flight, stripped of the force and stress of jet travel, just flowing with the breeze, with nothing separating you from the clouds.
Landing is another experience of the surprising precision of these massive air bags. We land right on the trailer that transports the wicker baskets, with barely a thud. There are big guys to lift the older people out. There are a few shots of Joan Beisel being carried off like a baby. Champagne toasts and sales of photos and video thumb-drives of the flight complete the experience.
We’re back at the hotel by around 9:00 am, still a bit dazed from our visit to another realm, just in time for a quick breakfast, luggage deposit (there’s a truck to transport the big bags while we ride on the buses), and then we board for a couple-of-hour ride to Konya, to re-ascend and float with Rumi for the afternoon. That will be in another post.
