The first of my 30 in 30 is complete!  This past weekend we had a friend in town for the long weekend (happy bayram!) so we took an overnight trip to Kapadokya.  Early (very early) Sunday morning we went on a hot air balloon adventure over the incredibly unique geography of Kapadokya.  It was awesome.

These little ‘fairy chimneys’ are all over the place thanks to *really* old volcanic ash being eroded by wind and rain.

I had been there before, in 2005 when I was studying abroad my sister and I backpacked through the super cool sites of Turkey.  Sadly, at that time hot air balloon rides weren’t as popular and were thus very expensive and not even offered to measly students such as us.  Now the hot air balloons themselves are a tourist attraction.  At one point Sunday morning, over 80 hot air balloons were floating over the canyons and plateaus at the same time.  Which apparently makes piloting more difficult, but it does make for lovely photos.

I can only imagine how cool this looks from below.

I’m not really terribly frightened by heights… I find them exhilarating, but I do get that scary knot in my stomach when I realize that I could fall from the height.  The balloon experience was so graceful though that I wasn’t really as frightened as I thought I would be.  So while it wasn’t facing a fear, per se, it still was an amazing experience and I’m glad it was on the list.

I’m the second shadow from the right. Okay you can’t really tell, but trust me.