Until today, that was what I connected hot air balloons with.

Cappadocia is known for its hot air balloon rides. We had to feed into the hype and so made a booking to do a sunrise hot air balloon ride. We were picked up at 6am and shuttled to a mega balloon that was being inflated. There were around 24 people in our balloon so you can imagine the scale of it. We got to fly, high up in the sky with colorful balloons surrounding us and gorgeous view below. The ride lasted 40 minutes which was the perfect amount of time.

Fun side story - so we had to pay in advance for the ride yesterday. After figuring out ATMs (yes, I know - trust me - not as easy as you would think - we used Ziraat bank with no conversion for the best rate), we went back to the hotel to pay for the ride. Harneet decided to pitch me on how I should do the running around to pay since it was important that people in Turkey understand that women have money power too. Apparently, for the sake of humanity, it was imperative that I show folks who overlooked women to talk to men about money that I is the boss. Conflicted over calling him out on his laziness or saving humanity, I gave in and did the running around 😉. Women power for the win 🤔.

Back to the real story. With our handy flight certificates in hand (Harneet's dream of being a certified pilot now partially complete) - we defrosted over a delicious Turkish breakfast in the hotel that included menemen (Turkish eggs).

Our tummies full, we headed over to the Belisirma entrance of Ilhara valley, around 80km away. This hike was so well maintained. The entrance fees are now 15 euros per person but it looks like it was recently cleaned and maintained. We did a 4km easy hike in the warming sun and got to see a bunch of churches built into caves along the way including St. George cathedral, St. Jacinth cathedral and my favorite Serpent Cathedral. On our way back, we grabbed an orange and pomegranate juice from the tea house and got some nuzzles from a purring kitten.

Harneet also found his wooden throne here and we came across a tree that had a contraption attached to it. We investigated and couldn't find the source of water - any guesses? And check out Mount Hasan (Hasan dagi) that we got an amazing view of on the way out.

Next on our list was the Derinkuyu underground city which was a good stop on the way back. However, we were getting hungry so stopped at the Doyum restaurant where we ate some more Turkish food with some fantastic salads and bread on the house.

Re-energized, we got to the underground city. It is amazing how an entire city along with livestock existed underground. Now, I'm not sure if I was grateful or regretted the food in my tummy when we had to navigate through low ceilinged tunnels, up and down floors and floors of stairs. Quite an experience! Here is a sneak peek at what that felt like.

And finally it was time to make it back to the hotel. We stopped at Kaymakli to get some Kuru Kaymak (dried cream). It is a local dish where milk is cooked way down for hours and then dehydrated. It is made only in this area and we picked some up from a grocery store called Kuru Kaymak Satis Merkezi. With honey drizzled on it, it was definitely something I have never tasted before. I quite enjoyed it though I can see opinions being split. It is heavy and Harneet couldn't eat more than a bite (lactose). I'm so glad we stopped to try it though.

After getting to the hotel, we thought it would be good to nap before going out to red valley for the sunset. Since it was a clear day, this seemed like a great idea.

You know how you plan to do something and set an alarm and turn off the alarm and end up oversleeping. No? We do it all the time 🤣. Sunset was at 6:44pm and we ended up waking up at 6:15pm. At this point, we gave up on red valley and fortunately caught the sunset close to love valley. An exclusive sunset with no crowds to fight with for views. Zero regrets.

I have to wrap with some dinner pictures no? Goreme Han was our dinner destination today. Stuffed grape leaves (very different from dolmas), eggplant casserole and chicken pottery kebab all surpassed expectations.

Tomorrow we wrap up Cappadocia and head to our next destination. Stay tuned!