Wherever The Wind...
  • Home
  • Travel Blog
  • Itinerary
  • Miscellaneous
    • Food Photos
    • What's in our bags
    • Rejected Blog Names
    • Links
    • Contact Us

Talking Turkey Part 4/4: Up, Up and Away (Cappadocia)

12/23/2014

2 Comments

 

By Caitlin

Picture
In central Turkey, at least a 10 hour bus ride from anything else in the country is one of the weirdest landscapes you will ever see. It looks like melting frosting and the home of Marvin the Martian at the same time. Even the name, Cappadoccia, evokes mystery and intrigue. More crazy then the landscape itself, is that over the centuries, people carved homes and churches into the soft rock.  The miles of jutting rock lent itself to concealing early monasteries of Christians hiding out from persecution. A result of eroded volcanic rock, the valleys and fairy chimneys (as the odd formations are called) often reminded us of mini-Grand Canyons because of the layers of orange and red.  If that doesn't grab your interest, consider that the locals call one particular valley, Love Valley, for what will be obvious in the pictures. 

One of the biggest reasons Cappadoccia is such a tourist Mecca, however, is because of its famed hot air balloons. Cappadocia is such a well-known hot air balloon location partly because getting high up is a great way to see the unique landscape, but also because the sheer number of balloons in the air at sunrise provides an awe-inspiring spectacle in itself. A bucket list item for me, it was quite the dramatic endeavor, requiring you waking up at 4 am and head out to go to the launch site and wait to find out if the conditions are good enough for a launch. Our first day, they were not, so we had to start the 4 am ritual over again the next day.  The hot air balloon was definitely a highlight of our trip. Cappadoccia is unmissable in my book, as it makes Turkey unique. Words don't do it justice and neither do photos but here is our meager attempt (click the photos to get an enlarged gallery) 
2 Comments
Dan G. link
12/24/2014 01:11:31 pm

Wow, these photos are absolutely incredible! The one with all the hot air balloons looks like a scene from that Helium short film. Can't imagine what it was like to be up there!

Reply
Lindsay
12/25/2014 03:01:30 pm

Second that. The photos are insanely gorgeous.

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    Authors

    This is Caitlin and Jed's blog about our adventures.

    Archives

    July 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014

    Categories

    All
    Africa
    Asia
    Central America
    Europe
    General Travel Info
    Middle East
    South America
    United States

    Subscribe to our blog:

    RSS Feed

Wherever The Wind...
Home   Travel Blog   Itinerary   Miscellaneous