Jill and I woke up 3:30 AM.
Let me repeat that: 3:30 AM wake up time.
Or, as my step-dad would say, “0 dark thirty.”
We got dressed, met the van at our door, and stopped to pick up a few other passengers, and arrived at Butterfly Balloons after about 10 minutes.
They checked us in, showed us to a sitting room that had a breakfast buffet set up, and we sat down.
We met a couple on their honeymoon, from NYC, who were both traveling the world and enjoying themselves.
Shin and John were going to many different countries and were a great couple to talk to while we were waking up. They both had quit their jobs and just decided to live their dreams for a while.
Sadly, they weren’t in our group so we said goodbye to them as we loaded into the van to go to our balloon.
We drove to the site and hopped out.
It was a gorgeous morning with only a bit of haze on the horizon.
As the balloons were being inflated, we met a couple that would be flying with us, Abby and Brent, and just enjoyed waking up to see such a magnificent view and realized how lucky we were to be alive.
- The view from our room at about 3:30 AM.
- The “wake up” room at Butterfly Balloons.
- Uchisar Castle over Goreme.
- Starting to inflate the balloons.
- Our balloon is in the forefront with the gondola.
- The truck to ground the balloon as it inflates.
- From our plateau, we could see the other balloons taking off and lighting up.
- Abby and Brent were nice enough to take our picture.
- Inflating the balloon.