The Balloons of Cappadocia, Turkiye

It had been four or five days that the balloons hadn't been allowed to fly due to weather conditions, but yesterday morning we could hear the burners while lying in bed. So we got up right away to find several flying overhead. It wasn't the nicest morning with a lot of haze in the sky, but we went out to take some photos anyhow.

Then this morning, we heard them again. We got up right away, and it was a much nicer morning with a clear blue sky and no wind to speak of at all.

So, here are a bunch of Cappadocia balloon photos, and it didn't cost us a dime!

Yesterday...

You can see what a dull start to the day it was.

The photos almost look black and white except for the balloons.

Zoomed in.

We think there were about 75 balloons in the sky, but it's really hard to count them. I've read where there can be as many as 150.

Obviously it's very random and conditions change every day. The people who went yesterday seemed to get a better ride because there was slightly more wind yesterday than there was today. The people who went today had a clearer sky and a better sunrise, but there was zero wind to speak of so the balloons went up and down and most of them didn't seem to get very far.

Here are this mornings photos...

Max and the balloons at 6:15am this morning.

Sunrise!

Maximum 28 people.

The balloons can carry anywhere between 4 to 28 people depending on the size of the basket and the size of the balloon. The less people in the basket, the higher the price you pay... right now that is between €140 to €280 per person. Now do the math... 28 people paying €140 per person is €3,920 per day when the balloons are flying. That's a lot of coin in a country like Turkiye. Like I said yesterday, it's a big money business.

Landing time for this one.

Because there was pretty much zero wind, they were able to land right on the trailer.

Another one landing.

We probably walked 4 kms (2.5 miles) before breakfast just to watch the balloons from various viewpoints. 

Despite the fact that we didn't go on one, we don't feel like we missed out on much. We enjoyed watching them float around, and we still saw lots of Cappadocia scenery while out hiking. Speaking of that, I will put yesterday's hiking excursion into a separate post later on today.

We've enjoyed four nights here in Cappadocia, but it's time to move on. We've only got two weeks left in Turkiye and it's going to be a a busy two weeks!

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