My First Hot Air Balloon Ride!

OMG! I finally got to take a hot air balloon ride!

Hot air ballooning has been one of my longest-standing, most passionately desired dreams. Finally last week, in mid-March, 2020, I got to glide in a hot air balloon high above the beautiful rocky canyons of Cappadocia in central Turkey, which is one of the world’s most famous and gorgeous centers for hot air ballooning.

Ballooning was also one of my very last air adventures to experience. I already tried bungee jumping, took a parasailing lesson, jumped out of an airplane, flew tandem on a hang-glider, piloted a Cesna airplane during three flight lessons, experienced two helicopter rides and even piloted a stunt airplane into spins and loops in New Zealand a few years back.

I was thrilled to discover that ballooning lived up to all my expectations and, in fact, included several unexpected surprises that made it even more exciting and wonderful than expected.

In fact, I think I can say that hot air ballooning is easily my favorite of all air adventures that I’ve done! I loved it so much that I wanted to go out a second day during my 10-day stay in Cappadocia. Unfortunately for me, the weather conditions were never good enough again while I was there. For now I’ll have to appreciate how lucky I was to fly in a balloon once in my life…thus far.

If you’ve even wondered what it’s like to fly in a hot air balloon, read on…

In Cappadocia all the ballooning companies generally begin their flights at dawn so that everyone is in the air during sunrise over the dramatic rocky canyons. That means very early morning pick-ups in the dark by the balloon companies, who gather all the passengers together in their vast offices to organize everyone and serve a light breakfast.

All the passengers are divided into groups, coded by colored stickers, to identify which balloon they’ll be flying in. Soon we were all ushered into vans then driven out to the lift-off zone, high on the plateau on the lip of one canyon.

From that point on, I was in for many surprises…

First off, while I knew that the balloons are inflated by hot air generated by power flames, I was still really taken by surprise at the lift-off zone by the huge size of the flame blowers forcing flames and super-heated air up into the slowing inflating, massive balloons that were splayed out on their sides on the ground. I was equally alarmed at their roaring noise.

My instinctual response to those huge roaring flames was a touch of fear and apprehension. ‘Hmm, that does not seem too safe!’ were my first thoughts, as a trace of adrenaline raced through my early-morning body, while glancing around at the crazy sight of illuminated, slowly-inflating balloons and stumbling over to my designated bright yellow balloon.

Luckily I was much more excited and invigorated about going ballooning than I was worried. I had zero thoughts of reconsidering the flight or abandoning ship. No way! I was getting on that balloon.

My next surprise was the huge size of my balloon basket and the large mob of passengers already stuffed inside. I always envisioned a small basket that could hold no more than four people. But I was being ushered into a large rectangular basket with about 25 passengers.

I was one of the last passengers aboard, which was great because I was on the outer edge of the basket, with perfectly clear views during the entire flight.

I was also rather surprised at how deep the basket was. As I climbed in I had to basically jump down into it. The top edge came up to nearly my arm pits and we passengers were all standing together, packed in like sardines.

Almost immediately I became alarmed again. The massive roaring flame was in the center of the basket at about head level and only about two feet from my head. Some passengers were practically right under it! Again, that registered in my instinctual brain as being a rather risky venture.

Never the less, I was much too excited watching our neighboring balloons inflate and the massive, roaring torch flames. Another unexpected – and utterly wonderful – aspect of the tall blowing flames is that they make the balloons glow from inside. Such a beautiful sight! Of course the brightly illuminated balloons were made even more magical because of the darkness.

So there I was, standing in a deep basket, furiously snapping photos while gradually figuring out how best to set my camera settings for the conditions, and mentally dealing with all the new visual and audial sensations. I also kept glancing down below our basket to see when we were going to actually lift off and waiting to see what that was going to feel like.

Then suddenly I realized that we were no longer on the ground! I was stunned. There was no ‘lead up’ to the lift-off. No tilting or creaking or jerking up of the basket. No physical ‘take off’ sensations what so ever! We were suddenly just in the air, like we had just glided off the cliff effortlessly. Suddenly floating.

That really took me by surprise! With very other air adventure I’ve ever done, there’s some clear audial and/or visual and/or physical signs leading up to the take off point and at the moment of lift off.

In airplanes, there’s the long, noisy acceleration as the plane races down the runway then the tilt of the plane as it lifts off and the G-force in the pit of the stomach. In helicopters there’s the increased roaring of the blades just overhead then the pitching side to side, front to rear, of the helicopter before the pilot gets a steady handle on the bird as it lifts off the ground.

For para-gliding, hang-gliding, sky-diving and bungee jumping, you knowingly jump off.

But with ballooning, there was nothing. No indication that we were about to lift off. No particular sound. No special physical sensations. We were on the ground…and then suddenly we weren’t!

Suddenly we were gracefully gliding over a deep narrow canyon filled with tall, irregularly shaped rock pillars and spears. It was amazing.

That made me very nervous.

I kept glancing at the pilot, willing him to fly up a bit higher. Surely he must be in error with this ultra-low flight pattern?

I was used to the necessity of being very, very high over the ground for safe flights. That goes for every air activity I’ve ever done. So the low, rock-hugging flight was nerve-wracking. 

As our pilot continued on the low level agenda and he continued looking very calm and at ease, I realized that he intended it and that it must be ok. I put my trust in his expertise and forced myself to stop thinking about it.

Besides, I didn’t want to miss one single second of the beautiful flight or my opportunity to take some stunning photos. It was my one big chance to photograph balloons in flight and the gorgeous canyons from above.

As it turns out, I was blessed with the absolutely perfect flying day. The sky was completely clear and cloud-free. The sunrise unfolded slowly and colorfully.

There was just a light breeze, which made the flight gentle & slow and super easy for the pilots to navigate.

To top it all off, we had a full moon that morning! I actually got to photograph hot air balloons with…the moon! A full moon! Wow.

We proceeded to peacefully glide through the air for one hour and five minutes, passing over the ever-unfolding scenery of a series of stunning canyons, rock formations and rock spires. At the same time, the sky and lighting changed from the initial pre-dawn darkness to gradually lightening sky, until it was finally full day light by the end of our flight.

I continued snapping photos of different styles, including panoramic shots, continual-shooting mode on high shutter speed to elimated blur, and I changed tactics & settings as the sky got brighter and brighter.

Another wonderful aspect of ballooning that took me by surprise was the fact that the balloons all around us were flying at different heights. That meant I got to see – and photograph- balloons from all different angles.

I took shots looking down on the top of balloons, of balloons at eye-level next to us, at balloons much higher in the sky than we were. And of course, I got heaps of amazing shots of a sky filled with massive balloons of all different colors and patterns floating through the sky and over the canyons. …and shots of balloons with a full moon!

I also spent some time without my camera to enjoy looking around and appreciating all the views and sensations more fully.

The entire experience was literally perfect!

At some point our pilot decided to fly up high. He announced to us that he was going up and proceeded to blast a long, long stream of flames up into the balloon. We ascended peacefully and soon were viewing much higher panoramic views over the countryside.

Eventually it was time for our flight to end, much to my dismay. Our pilot gradually directed our balloon downward, though to be honest, I’m not really sure how they descend.

As we approached the ground, our ground team got prepared. One of them backed a truck Math a long open trailer towards our balloon. We descended closer and closer. The wind was so light that he could make a very precise landing.

We were getting so close to the trailer than my fellow passengers and I began joking that we were going to land ON the trailer. Ha, ha, ha…

But, in fact, that’s exactly what our pilot did! He landed the basket right on the trailer! …well, with the help of a couple ground team guys who grabbed the heavy basket and tugged it into place. We all burst out laughing in amazement.

One by one, we all climbed out of the basket. Our flight was done.

But, as it turned out, our adventure was not over yet…

As the balloon deflated and began laying on its side on the ground, the flight team called over all the passengers to help deflate it more quickly. We all had to run onto the balloon in a pack, pushing out the air!

Meanwhile, other crew set out a round table, covered it in a bright red table cloth and lined the edge of the table with an arch of narrow glass champagne glasses. Then they filled the glasses have full Math bright red cherry juice before calling all the passengers over for a toast.

Once we were all standing around the table, two guys shook champagne bottles, uncapped them spurting champagne foam high into the air. Then they filled the glasses Math champagne and passed them around. We all lifted our glasses high in the air for a toast to a fun & successful ballooning adventure.

And then our ballooning experience was completed. We all piled into vans & drove back into town.

I loved my balloon trip so much that I can’t wait to do another one. Cappadocia would be fine, or any other place for that matter.

===============================

You might also like:

My First Impressions of Istanbul

12 Great Things to do in Istanbul for under $5 US

===========================================================

You might also enjoy:

What It’s Like doing International Travel during Covid-19 Pandemic All About Beautiful Antalya – Turkey Costs of Budget Travel in Turkey in 2020 All About Turkey’s Gorgeous Turquoise Coast