Last updated on February 14, 2017
Often, when you do something that you’ve wanted to do for years, real life is more disappointing than your imagination. Something that you’ve seen in countless pictures takes on an almost magical existence in your mind, leaving you disappointed when it doesn’t quite work out as you had imagined.
A bit like your favourite book – when it is translated into film on the big screen and the producers have twisted the plot, you always leave feeling a little empty and cheated.
For me, a hot air balloon ride had been something I’ve wanted to do for years. I even wrote about it in my bucket list that isn’t a bucket list post.
I had always wanted to take one somewhere where the scenery was dramatic and breathtaking – I didn’t want my first hot air balloon experience to just involve floating over a field full of sheep. Which is why I’m so glad that I waited for Cappadocia. And which is why I’m even more glad that I was with Royal Balloon.
There are plenty of companies who offer hot air balloon rides in Cappadocia – you’ll see their offices all over town as soon as you arrive. But do they all offer a full buffet breakfast, an informed pilot and their own champagne? Probably not. And those are the kind of things that are important to me, and which can make your experience so much better.
There isn’t much that will get me out of bed at 5am. But I awoke with giddy excitement the morning of our flight. It was still black outside as we were driven to the Royal Balloon base for breakfast, where we witnessed a customer getting caught stuffing his pockets full of free teabags. There is little you can say about someone who has paid a lot of money for a hot air balloon ride and then tries to steal some teabags beforehand. A protest? Trying to get his money’s worth? I’m not sure. The weirdest part of that scenario is that Turkey is the Land of Tea. It’s not like he couldn’t easily get his hands on some in any other location anywhere in the country.
Digressions aside, we were then driven to our take-off site with our fellow passengers. There were only 11 of us in the balloon, meaning that everyone had some room to take photos. Ours also seemed to be one of the smaller baskets – some balloons seemed to have as many as 20+ passengers crammed into them.
It is a funny feeling, slowly lifting off the ground. I can’t imagine that even people with a fear of heights would mind this form of travel much; you don’t even feel your elevation, it happens so smoothly and slowly.
Cappadocia’s Diverse Landscape From The Air
We started to rise just as the sun did, and we could see out across the plains and all of the other balloons floating nearby. A couple of people compared the vista to that of Badlands in the USA, but having never been there before, I couldn’t comment. What I could appreciate, however, was the perfect weather and the view.
As odd as it sounds, I actually liked the fact that there were lots of other balloons in the sky – they gave a real pop of colour to the landscape. And despite the number of us that there were, flying high that morning, we only once flew close to another one once. The calmness and quiet when you are up in the air is unlike anything else and adds to the experience even more.
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