Day 26: Escaping Goreme

We woke up at 4:30AM, ready for Balloon Fight: Round 2. We didn’t bother waiting for the bus and walked directly to Butterfly Balloon’s office where we spoke with both the office manager who offered us a refund and flight and the owner of the company, Mustafa. It was frustrating, although not as frustrating as the night before at our hotel.

The office manager told us (and the owner, Mustafa) that she was under the stress of trying to get the sick woman away from the balloon landing site and did not remember her conversation with Paul. And then the next sentence she suddenly “remembered” that she “must have” told Paul the company would “probably” give us a refund and that we needed to talk to Mustafa. WRONG. Mustafa was at least somewhat rationale, although he fabricated parts of conversations with us too. He asked us to “look at the situation from his position.” Well, we understood his position (he wanted a full balloon of paying customers) and we asked him to look at the situation from our position. We NEVER would have agreed to get on a balloon with that company again but for the office manager of the companying assuring us that our experience was an unlucky fluke and taking the time to convince us to accept a complimentary ride. In the end, we did not fly on the balloon and we weren’t charged the cancellation fee (aka 100% of the cost). What a hassle.

We sat in our cave from 5:00AM until 9:00AM, just waiting to check the hell out. We paid our bill with limited hassles (a few minor overcharges that were not worth the argument) and lugged our heavy suitcases down the steep hill to the bus station, where we dropped our bags with the sweet attendant. I think he was especially cheerful it was the end of Ramadan and the three day festival was starting. He offered us chocolates and told us he would watch our bags. We went in search of breakfast and stopped at a cute little café owned by another nice man wishing us a happy end of Ramadan and offering us chocolates.

After breakfast we went on a hike through the infamous, humorously named “Love Valley.” There was a lot of loose gravel and steep hills, so parts of our hike were surprisingly treacherous, but we had a great time. It was definitely an interesting landscape with all the unique fairy chimneys.
Paul on the way into Love Valley.
Love Valley (and me standing next to one of the fairy chimneys).
Me in Love Valley.

On the way back we stopped in a small organic shop I had seen earlier. I had been hoping to run into it again and buy dried mulberries (which I had tried during our first tour in Cappadocia). The woman at the shop was so nice. She let us sample everything and we ended up with a bag of dried mulberries and a box of Turkish delights. YUM.
Eating dried mulberries on a public bench in the town of Goreme.

Then we went and parked ourselves in another little café with free internet. First, we ordered two apple teas…We quickly decided that after our wretched experience with the hotel and balloon company, apple tea wasn’t going to cut it. It was time for beer. We sat with our beers, played on the internet, and eventually ordered a little snack called Gozleme (aka a Turkish pancake – ours was filled with spinach and cheese). The owner of the café was great. He was happy to let us sit and use the internet whether we ordered drinks and food or not. And when a group of Turkish women sat down at the café and then left immediately without eating due to the salt content in the bread, he gave us a hilarious commentary on Turkish women: “Turkish women are impossible. They eat like Homer Simpson until they are 40. Then diet. It takes 140 years to lose all that.” I was impressed he knew Homer Simpson! Although even in Egypt one of the shopkeepers outside a temple asked us if we knew “Springfield” from the Simpsons!
The great cafe where we tried Gozleme...
And had a couple rounds of "balloon medicine."

We wandered through the little town of Goreme for the next few hours – me petting all the stray dogs and playing with local children, and Paul accepting invites into strange, old Turkish women’s homes to buy plastic evil eye bracelets. It was quite an afternoon.
Me and one of my army of strays.
A particularly mangy golden retriever...I tried to convince Paul that we should buy him a kebab. Paul refused to touch him.

Finally, 9:00PM arrived and we quickly loaded onto the overnight bus for our 10 hour ride
to Antalya. And despite our terrible experiences with the hotel, its balloon company, its travel agency, and the 1 restaurant the hotel staff recommended…we left with the impression that Goreme was a cute, small town with generally friendly people. That we were happy to leave.