Hotel Lale Saray Uchisar

... slowly up in the air and wow what a view. Its a unique experience and one cannot explain all of the things and feelings. When the bruner is not in operation there is no noise and we can hear what people are saying on the ground and from other baloons.<br><br>In total we count that this morning we are 46 baloons and the picture is therefore very colorful. Our company has 3 baloons who departed together. The art of a baloon ride is to select the ...

... Shook Me All Night Long." Seperate you have two good Aussie songs... together...not good.<br><br>Anyways, the music after that was better, but Kristen and I were tired and the dance floor was not that busy (though Jeremy, Hayen, Phoenix and Jess, and for some time Kristen and I were doing our best). I did the worm for Hayden to see outside, which he said warranted one more drink, but we were tired. We headed home...looking forward to a big next couple of days in Cappadoccia.... <br>

... and a warming towel rack in the bathroom. We bargain a price and tell him we will come tomorrow. We head back to the Walnut Hotel and find that we can leave so we come to the Dervish Hotel. At lunch we talk with a woman from London who is here on a brief holiday. Fares to Turkey seem to be so cheap from London. We explore more of the town and then head out for diner. It was very good and not spicy at all! When we came out it was pouring, our umbrellas and ...

... were foot holds carved into the stone and we had to shimmy our way up. At the top there was another room with a little window. When we looked out the window, we could see that we were very high up, about 50 feet! It was a straight drop down. It was hard going back down, too, because the shaft was dark. It used to be a house for someone a long time ago. I got some scratches but was glad I did it. Cappadochia is an awesome place - I wish we were not leaving tomorrow!

... instead of the English alphabet, it was the Turkish alphabet on the wall of the playground. There is no Q and no W, but there two C's, two G's, two I's, two O's, two S's, and two U's. The Turkish alphabet was written after Ataturk, the first president, asked them to change it from Arabic in the 1930s. It is a hard language to learn. Right now, I just know how to say hello, "Merhaba", and thanks, "Skogal". And cheers, which is "Serafe", I think. This ...

... earth. We went from one valley to another with me mainly on the top of the truck and I was so brave as the one place we visited was an underground city, which hasn;t been lived in for ages. It was first inhabited around 6th century and has been modified over the years. It once housed 5000 people who lived in these hand hewn caves and goes down 8 levels but we were only able to do 5 but we still got to a depth of 30 metres and with my concerns about being in ...

... a backpack. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derinkuyu_ Underground_City After Derinkuyu, we went for an hour-long hike through the Ihlara valley to our lunch spot at a floating restaurant. You can literally see fish swimming by, so I (Lauren) decide that fish on the menu must all be fresh, right? Everyone else in the group had received some memo that the area was known for their meatballs ...

... this stage that the horses were out of practice, having been rested all winter they had forgotten their manners. Even the guide's horse was frisky. So Cappadoccia didn't really live up to its name. As usual, most accidents happen closest to home. 200m before the ranch, Dopey our guide took our three mischievous horses past a bloke working earth-moving machinery. Seriously! For my horse it was the last straw. It chucked a hissy fit and bucked and turned ...

Our first task for the day was to finish off the tour that Suha had prepared for us. That meant a visit to Goreme Open Air Museum to see the cave city and to Uchisar to climb the castle. In between we decided to buy a carpet or two. Goreme has some magnificent cave churches with some wonderful frescos showing scenes from the bible (as you would expect...) A number of tourist buses had pulled up and we found that we were having to go through the museum ...

... streets, and not feeling confident enough to rent a scooter, we realized we could rent a car and a driver to take us around. So, after breakfast back at the pension, we did just that. A very nice man drove us over 80 KM roundtrip to some very un-touristy areas for a fantastic lunch in a very far-off restaurant (also four courses - soup, salad, frýes, meat with rice, fruit) which felt like eating in someones backyard. Only, a backyard wýth two ...