Koula goes hot air ballooning

Koula, 94.7 presenter and F&HE blogger, is loving all things food-related in her travels through Turkey, Greece, Italy and Israel…

Sunday 26 August

Well today might just have made the trip for me! We left the hotel at 4:45am to go to the hot air balloon company’s base, where we had a great breakfast (some people feel light headed due to the high altitude during the rides, so they encourage all passengers to have a hearty breakfast). Shortly before 6am, our bus took us to our ‘lift off’ point. Such a bizarre sight – 106 hot air balloons being inflated all around us, trailers moving the baskets to the perfect positions; a hive of activity for the thousands of tourists who flock to this area specifically for this activity. After filming some of the set up, we hopped into our box and our hot air balloon took to the sky! What an experience! We floated up gently, admiring all the balloons around us, as the sun rose over the unusual volcanic rock formations. We passed some of the formations so close we could almost reach out and touch them!
There are hundreds of caves in the formations – amazing to think that people had actually lived inside these strange looking phenomena. Definitely one of the best experiences of my life and the rest of the day, though pretty great, still paled in comparison.
We’re staying in Konya this evening. Still blown away by how much Turkey has to offer tourists.

SOURCES
By Serdar Yilgoren