Mom said it’s flat

Day 10:

Update #1: 2:45am the alarm goes off and we all get up. It didn’t feel as early as it actually was and I wasn’t actually that tired…yet. We were on our way to our balloon adventure! First we hopped in the van which took us to get checked in and get breakfast. Then we were driven to the takeoff spot of the balloons. The process was neat. The basket (which holds up to 20 people not including the pilots) was divided into four parts with a middle strip for the pilots. Upon arriving the basket was flipped on its side and the balloon itself was laying out on the grass. For the moment they just had air blowing into the balloon so it was blown up but not floating in the air. Soon they turned on the burners and the balloon started to lift up into the air and along with it the basket flipped right side up. My family got one of the four sections all to ourselves which was so cool because then if you wanted someone to move you could just tell them and you didn’t have to share at all! Soon we were all in and starting floating into the air. It happened fast and then we were all the way up. The pilot said that they get to about 800 meters which is roughly 2,400 ft in the air. We were very high and all slightly nervous of dropping our phones. The trip overall lasted about an hour and we saw the sun rise as well as about 140 other balloons with us in the sky! The experience was magical. On the decent we thought we were going to land on the ground. However they were somehow able to flawlessly land directly onto a trailer bed. We all exited the basket and watched as they deflated the balloon. To congratulate us on not dying they presented us with a champagne toast before the drive back home. 

Update #2: It is now about 8am and we have just finished a two our nap after returning home exhausted! Now we are headed up to get a second breakfast before continuing on with the rest of our day. 

Update #3: We were then headed to Goreme which has a huge monastery that was built directly into the rocks. These little stone houses are actually everywhere around Cappadocia. They are quite neat. These specific ones had kitchens, churches, rooms, as well as multiple levels. The stone is soft enough that when they were building these they were able to carve right into the rocks. Within the churches there were many paintings on the wall that are now old and fading away. There were technically no pictures allowed however, I took pictures for you guys by holding my phone upside down and pressing the volumn button. I was sneaky about it and have put them down below for you! 

 

Update #4: After our trip to the monastery we were headed to grab some lunch, we found this restaurant that I was actually nervous about for a while but it turned out to be amazing! The food was delicious we all got chicken shish kebab but they also brought out thin tortilla like bread with taziki sauce and some other something. Overall it was one of the best meals I’ve had. 

Update #5: One of our final stops for today was a hike. Let me preface this paragraph with this, overall the hike was good and it was pretty despite everything. Now into the story. Before beginning our trek mom promised that it would be and I quote “a flat hike.” We soon found this to be very untrue. We strolled around a very unwell marked path, and while we did find some cool things, we also trespassed on someone’s property, scrambled up a very steep slippery slope, got lost, went in many circles, and fell and slipped. The very first portion of our hike we were able to further explore some of the churches built into the rock and instead of feeling the restrictions of the first place, here we found none. So we wondered around at our own will, which was definitely worth it. After a while we slowly started to get lost a lot, and attempted to go many different directions that didn’t even look like a path. Up to this point we had seen no one on our trail until we came across a couple who had actually just gotten engaged in that spot (they asked me to take some pictures so I took some pretty bomb ones, they are going to show those to their kids one day!!) After this point is where things got tricky. We got very lost and ended up near some old cabin in the wood which clearly belonged to someone (it was kinda creepy like a horror movie or something!) The man quickly came over and told us that this was not the right way, which was quite obvious. So we turned around and made another circle thinking we had missed something. When we realized we hadn’t we were very confused and finally dad ended up asking the guy where to go. Thankfully he did or we would have continued to be very lost. We found the trail again which led us to our next issue. A hill, a very steep hill. (Rewind at this point to the fourth sentence of this paragraph “mom said it would be flat”). This massive hill was by no means flat, so much so that there was a rope so that you could pull yourself up the hill. It was terrible. I ended up tripping and landing directly on my wrist, which if any of you are aware is not a great thing. However, we made it to the top regardless. After this treacherous path we decided to take the shorter route back to the car as we had already been hiking for about 2 1/2 hours and everyone was exhausted. On the way we saw some more cave homes and churches as well as stopping at a little juice shack for some freshly squeezed juice. 

Update #6: We made it! Back into the car and into the air conditioning! It felt so nice! We drove back to the hotel and stopped to get some ice cream along the way. Which more or less turned into a show where he even added spinning me around before handing me my ice cream. Now we are back in the hotel before going out to see the sunset and get dinner! 

Update #7: We got some hot chocolate and watched the sunset on the mountain. It was very busy but it was beautiful. Directly after the sun set we zoomed out of there to avoid the crowds which worked splendidly. Upon arriving back at the house Riley mom and dad went to get dinner upstairs and I stayed down to take a shower and begin getting ready for bed as I am very tired. That concludes our day today! Until tomorrow!