Friday, June 15, 2007

Ballooning over Kapadokya

For the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, Dustin and I shelled out the big bucks to go hot-air balloning over Cappadocia. We woke up at 4:00am to view the landscape at dawn. The one hour and fifty minute ride was quite the awesome experience. Upon touchdown, the group celebrated "survival" with a Cloud 9 cocktail - Turkish sparkling wine with cherry juice.

Check out the video as we mosy our way through Love Valley - the "fairy chimneys" are one of Cappadocia's many unique geologic features.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wow! The landscape is amazing. Looks like you guys are having a blast. 'Dad'

Anonymous said...

Double Wow!! Beautiful!! And what fun for those of us back at our desks to vicariously enjoy what you are doing/seeing.
Love, Mom

DarcyLaine said...

Breathtaking.

I did a hot balloon ride once, but it was over a trailer park in Largo, FL. Pretty cool, ya know.

Anonymous said...

The video was really stunning. How difficult was it to post a video to the blog? I also wonder how those beautiful "chimneys" were formed...same way as in Monument Valley in the U.S.(erosion of softer rock)?

"Ellas" gang

- JK - said...

Blogger now has a "blogger in draft" website to test new features, one of which is the video upload - see http://draft.blogger.com/home

Much of the geology involves soft volcanic tuft rock with tougher basalt on top. Erosion forms the "fairy chimneys" leaving the basalt balancing on top. Thanks for the comment.