It's a big money business!

But some news to tell you before we get to that. 

Yesterday, I booked our ferry tickets from Denmark to Norway. I booked us return tickets for €192 ($263 CAD, $211 USD) each way. The further in advance you book, the cheaper the tickets are so I wanted to get that done as soon as we were comfortable with the dates.

We depart June 1st, so now we are on another time schedule! 

We have to be out of Turkiye April 20th, and on the ferry to Norway June 1st. But we also have to watch our Schengen visa time so we will be spending as much time as possible in Bulgaria and Romania and then making a fairly quick drive from Romania to Denmark during the last two weeks or so of May.

Then we return to Denmark July 26th. and fly out of Amsterdam to Canada August 5th.

So, our travel plans are all booked for the next five months!

We woke up to a beautiful blue sky day yesterday!

There are a lot of hiking trails around Goreme. And Max is parked in a very central location (in fact, we really lucked out with our parking spot!) and so it is easy to set off in any direction and go hiking right away. 

The landscape is truly fascinating which of course is the main reason people come here. But in our opinion most people don't see the best parts, which you can only see from hiking. The typical visitor to Cappadocia sees the overpriced Open Air Museum, they do a guided area tour, and they take a balloon ride. The average visit here is for 2-3 days.

But we are here for the hiking, and there is lots of it!

Yesterday we did the Pigeon Valley hike from Goreme to Uchisar. We didn't see another person on the trail the whole time!

Ruth, saying hello to the horses. 

You can see where Max is parked on the left.

This old wooden chest was lying on top of a pile of junk!

Looking back at Max in the center of the photo.

Almost all of the sandstone rocks and "fairy chimneys" have caves or rooms carved into them. Most of them were carved out between the 12th and 6th centuries BC. Of course there are many that have been carved out since then as well, so it's difficult to go anywhere in the region and not see some kind of cave carved into the rock.

And many are still being lived in today!

A more modern structure added on to the caves.

There are odd rock formations everywhere.

Just a bird.

All of the pictures I've shown you so far are just on the outskirts of Goreme. We haven't even made it to the trail yet. And so there are also a lot of hotels and restaurants and cafes. So amongst all of this beautiful scenery, you come across places like this...

Yes, Cappadocia is very much a tourist spot.

Pigeon nests carved into the rock.

Pigeon Valley is so named because they used pigeon droppings as fertilizer to grow grapes back in the ancient times. And there are still pigeons living in the valley.

Yes, there are a lot of odd rock formations!

Ruth and the scenery.

Me and the scenery.

Pigeon Valley.

Scenery along the way.

Ruth.

We did a fair bit of uphill.

Cool rocks.

And then we got a view of Uchisar.

Ruth and the view of Uchasar.

We weren't originally planning to, but we decided to hike all the way up to the top of Uchasar.

Who needs a balloon when you are a hiker??

Me, and the view above Pigeon Valley.

This turkey was showing off for us.

Taking a break.

Saying hello to a friendly puppy along the way.

Stone carving.

The top of Uchisar.

Unfortunately they wanted 50 lira to climb to the very top and we thought that was overpriced so didn't bother. Never heard so much English being spoken since we were in Antalya!

Still lots to see without paying the extra.

Views from Uchisar.

We walked along the main road to get back to Max for a late lunch. Then we walked over to some of the head offices of the balloon companies. Four of them are located very close to where Max is parked.

There are approximately 27 balloon companies in the area, and many of them belong to a price fixing consortium. I found this article from 2019...

https://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/balloon-ride-consortium-under-scrutiny-in-cappadocia-144035

It's a big money business, and it's not priced in local currency. Most of them want €170 to €180 per person for a basic trip. The best price we could get so far is €140 ($191 CAD, $153 USD) per person. We simply don't see good value at that price. There is enough to keep us busy here without having to spend that kind of money. One girl even told us that the consortium still exists and most companies charge the same general price. Last year during Covid prices were really cheap (€60 to €80) because there were simply not many tourists around.

A secondary problem is that the weather hasn't been good for ballooning. The trips have been cancelled the last three days, and again today. So now they have a backlog of people who haven't been able to go, and therefore they don't have any incentive to offer a deal at this time.

This is the third time we have made an effort to go in a hot air balloon, and the third time it hasn't worked out. Once was in Albuquerque in April 2013, and another was in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. Oh well. It's something that will get done someday. We're not that concerned.

Cloudy start to the day today, but we are off for another hike!

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Nice price drop on the Apple Watch SE.

And in Canada...

Inflatable Stand Up Paddle Board.