Balloon ride day!  Needless to say we both slept poorly in fear of over sleeping. But we dragged our sorry butts out of bed, and headed to the Butterfly Balloon office for paperwork and a light breakfast.

Soon we were in our bus and on our way to the launching point. I was very quiet as in my mind I was composing the texts that I should send in case our balloon crashed. I decided against it as that would be bad luck, so just sucked it up.

Inflating the balloon seems to be quite a lengthy process. There are huge fans that point inside the balloon until it’s mostly filled, and then the pilot starts heating the air with the four burners that he controls with valves. Once the balloon is filled, we hop in. Four people per compartment, and the balloon held sixteen people plus the pilot. 

Very, very gently the balloon lifted. And no one could be more surprised than me when I wasn’t afraid. I think because everything moves so slowly, and it’s so gentle and quiet, I just wasn’t scared. Go figure. 

It may be one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever experienced. If you ever get to Cappadocia, this is not to be missed. We were especially lucky because the following two mornings there were no balloons flights as it was too windy. I can only imagine the scheduling nightmare, not to mention the disappointed people.