99 red hot air balloons - Cappadocia

If you take a nine hour night bus from istanbul, you might end up in Cappodocia.  Cappadocia has to be one of the most amazing places this world has to offer.  Seriously unique and once again seems like something out of this world. Dr. Suess must have been born here because all the rock formations looked like something from out of his books. This place is so good apparently the bible even gives it a shout out according to a tour guide we were eavesdropping in on. 

The land of Cappadocia- known for its fairy chimney-like rock formations and Dr Seuss' hometown (according to us)

When staying in cave land you must stay in a cave hotel.  Which is exactly what it sounds like - a cave they turned into a hotel.  Despite what the name may suggest - the hotel was super accommodating and luxurious! One of the most comfy rooms we've had and most hospitable hotel host ever!! As soon as we checked in they had a homemade breakfast waiting for us - homemade jams, delicious warm bread, all sorts of home made cheeses and beef from their cattle (they were very natural here), eggs (probably straight from chickens and the rooster we heard crowing that morning) and tons of fruits (unfortunately this breakfast would be the downfall of Robby the next day). 

Our cave hotel!

The rooms were for small hobbits. We had to pretty much crawl In!

There was so much to see in this place! We hiked for hours that day. The chimney rocks go on forever and you can see caves that were carved into these rocks that people lived in back in the first century!  People still live in caves in Cappodocia and our hotel owner told us he was born and raised in a cave - not like the ones they turn into luxurious stays for tourists- but legit caves!! These people are cavemen in the finest form!!  

The city has crazy rocks all over the place and legitimate cave houses everywhere

This is someone's house!

Name this animal!

Chimney rocks and caves - doesn't the cave on the left look like a dr Suess house or something??

Sunset - we were actually stranded on our hike after dark - about five miles from town.  Finally someone came by and let us catch a ride back!

So pretty!

Old caves from around the 3rd century - still writings and drawings on the walls

Hiking was awesome and all...but in order to see all of the crazy formations there are in Cappodocia...one must float hundreds of meters into the air in a balloon!! Cappodocia is known as a hot spot for this - they have literally about 100 hot air balloons that take off in this valley every morning before dawn.  We knew we had to do it despite how expensive it was.  And the fact that three tourists died here in a hot air balloon crash just in May.  This freaked me out a little, but not enough to not experience it! We shopped around and bargained all we could and got a decent price to do it!! We had to meet an hour before dawn the next morning to get ready to go and be up in the air for sunrise. Unfortunately for us, the time had literally just been changed for daylight savings so dawn was an hour earlier the next day, haha great timing! But well worth the lack of sleep.  4am was a great time to be alive and awake that day. This is why:

Sun creepin up

Before take off! Yep, Robby color coordinated his beanie with our balloon 

Up in the air!

Soo amaZing to look out and see that many balloons around us!

Our pilot took us through the valleys and we were almost able to touch the rocks! (just like this balloon but our balloon had way cooler colors!)

We got a pic of this hot air balloon landing in this tiny cart attached to a truck...and then our hot air balloon did the same thing!! Our pilot landed us directly in the cart and we drove like that for a bit haha!

Our trusty pilot...wearing a wig

Hurray! This was seriously one of the coolest things we've ever done!

After coming down from the amazing high (both literally and figuratively) we went back to the cave for breakfast. All this adventure and it was barely 8:30am!  Well unlike the previous morning, breakfast that morning was a terrible choice.  It was all the same stuff that tasted delicious, but apparently Robby ate something...infected? Sounds nasty but he totally got e-coli from either the meat or a cheese we think! A few hours after breakfast he started feeling really weird, stomach cramping, nausea, fever, all that good stuff.  poor guy could hardly move!  All he was capable of for the next few days was sleeping and walking very very slow.  We literally slept away almost 2 days in the cave which luckily was dark and cool for him to sleep off his fever.  But we still had to make it to the next city, Pamukkale, which was an 8 hour night bus away! After some tlc and good rest we were able to make the trip. Robby was still sick for almost 10 days after this but each day slowly regained strength and we would still go out but just slower paced. Good thing we did the best stuff before hand and didn't miss too much in Cappodocia!!  He is completely back to 100% and alive and well as I write this.  He has all limbs in tact too, no amputations needed so worries!