Long Road to Cappadocia

We left London bright and early on Saturday morning and headed to the Harrod's Airport where we met our plane.  The plane is a 757 and it as been outfitted with 78 seats.  We arrived to our seats and were welcomed be a fresh flower and lots of goodies for our travel comfort.  You can see the pinocchio enjoyed his new digs!  We will have seats 3A & 3B until we hit the Maldives and then we moved back to the 12th row.  The flight was good and we had lunch and were ready to arrive near Cappadocia.

Our seats on the plane

All was going well until about 20 minutes before we were going to land when the captain announced the weather was not what they expected so we would have to circle for 15-20 minutes.  The turbulence was rough and there was lightning outside. .. he tried to make two landings and we aborted both at the last minutes because of cross winds on the runway!  We were diverted to Ancora (sp?) and then had to take a bus for 4 + hours.  We missed the Whirling Devishes :-( but did get to eat at a Turkish Truck Stop along the way.  It was midnight when we reached our hotel.  The Museum hotel is a cave hotel and each room is a series of caves.  We were tired and motion sick when we finally opened the door to hotel and we were stopped in our tracks by the beauty of the room!!!

Our Living room in the Museum Hotel Room

 The walls are all stone and there are carvings along the walls for decoration.  If you can see behind the couch the two black levers. . .the dispense red and white wine!!  There are beautiful artifacts all around the room.  Our bedroom is up one step and is a wonderful cave room!

Our bedroom carved into the rock

 The bath room is breathtaking with the bath tube tucked into the cave arch way!  The bathroom is huge and the floors are heated!  The hotel room was a little warm last night but this morning it was so nice to take a hot shower and have the bathroom heated!

Our bathroom

 We got to bed last night at 1am and the wake up call came at 5:30am for the balloon ride.  I was tempted to blow it off and sleep but I got up and went ballooning!  The landscape of Cappadocia is amazing . . .rock spires that have been hollowed out for living in and raising pigeons!

Pinocchio ballooning

 This morning about 40 balloons were dotting the landscape, in the summer there can be upwards of 200 balloons in the sky.  It was cold and raining but the sights were still spectacular!

Balloons over the rock formations

 The balloons hoover over the landscape and then go way up in the sir to get the panoramic view!  I loved the wave like wall in the picture below.  The carved sections were used as a pigeon house. . .they used the eggs for food, used the birds for sending messages, and used their dropping for fertilizing the soil for their grapes and apricots!

Pigeon houses

After the early morning balloon ride we toured some cave churches that were once part of the early Christian movement.  The churches were hollowed out of the stone and were beautifully painted.

Tomorrow we fly to Rwanda for the gorilla part of the trip.  We pray for a smooth flight and easy transportation to the mountains!  I will post again on Wednesday I hope!