From a boat, to treehouses, to a bus, to a cave; the last 4 days have certainly been different!

After an amazing nights sleep we woke at 4:30am ready and raring to go for our hot air balloon ride! There was bit of confusion in the morning, we think they forgot to book us in but everything worked out in the end and we were picked up and on our way to our hot air balloon!

When we arrived in the valley to get on our hot air balloon it amazed me just how many of these balloons they have per day, there were hundreds of them, not to mention it amazed me how bloody cold it was especially after being in the heat for so long! After getting in the basket with the other 18 people (they were very big baskets) we were told the safety instructions before we were ready for lift off. The ride itself is surprisingly smooth, you feel barely any movement in the basket and before we knew it we were over 700mt in the air. Our guide told us that the max height without needing oxygen was 3000mt, we only climbed to 1200mt but that was definately high enough (we were higher than all the other balloons and as some people are aware Rebecca and myself do not do very well with heights).

The view from the balloon was amazing, everything looked so surreal and all the other balloons made for an amazing view. Touchdown for the flight was a bit uncomfortable with Bec pretty much sitting on my legs, I thought I was going to break my ankle at one point but I survived so all good. After landing safely we were given some champagne to celebrate, which is customary and a certificate to show we had completed it, this was definitely one of the highlights for the trip and something we'll remember for a long time to come!

We returned to our cave not long later and had showers and packed our bags before a nice buffet breakfast, which had a nice chocolate cake and chocolate crepe mmmm. Today was also the second part of our Cappadocia tour this time through the northern half. Our first stop on the road was the underground city which was really cool. We were told that the city was first used over 4000 years ago by the hittites before being continued and enlarged by the those that came after, predominantly Christians hiding from the Romans. The city was amazing considering it's age but it was really cramped through some of the passageways, to the point where I thought we would have to crawl.

After spending a few hours in the city it was time for lunch, which besides the annoying flies, was delicious. After all our food throughout the day it was time for a 4pm walk through the Ilhara Canyon. Inside the canyon was a beautiful valley with green trees, plenty of different wildlife including a donkey and ducks (which Bec loves way too much) and a cool little cafe that extended into the river with little beds and chairs. After our little workout we headed to Selime Monastery. The monastery was made in the 4th century and was built into the rock. The monastery was quite a bit of fun as it involved a little bit of climbing and exploring.

On the way to our last stop the tour guide stopped and grabbed some amazing fresh organic strawberries which we all devoured. The last stop of the day was pigeon valley. What we had found over the past two days is how important the pigeon was to the people who used to live here. It was their way of communicating, they used the excrement for painting buildings (it apparently keeps away bugs), manure for the plants and of course pigeon's were a great meal.

After returning to our hotel we grabbed a quick dinner and headed straight for our overnight bus to Istanbul, let's hope it's better then the last overnight bus! Instanbul is our last stop in Europe then it's hello to the USA!!!!