Cappadocia Hot Air Ballooning

A beautiful ride for the team of twelve, in a hot air balloon yesterday morning almost turned into a total disaster.  After a fabulous ride looking down at this fairy tale region with rock dwellings and mushroom shaped turrets in the rock formation it was time to land. We were the only balloon in the air and the pilot made several attempts to land. First, in a wheat field and then a couple of other spots. We saw the ground crew below driving fanatically to each potential landing spot.

Finally” take your landing positions” and down we all went. The balloon hit the ground with a terrible thud knocking us all about, then up again and down again. It landed on its side, no upright landing. Silence.

 The ground crew pulled or helped most of us from the basked. It was surreal.

We looked around and there was Ian B lying on the ground, unable to move. He was ashen, as was Denise his wife sitting on the ground next to him. We covered them with our jumpers because clearly they were both in shock. Ian knew that his hip was out and dislocated. He could not move and was in great pain. The crew moved Ian on to a mattress and Ian and Denise were rushed to hospital with the support crew managing the situation.

The rest of the team were devastated. Our aches and pains paled into utter insignificance.

An hour later Dave, Kerith, Ken and I headed to the hospital to see if there was anything we could do. Ian and Denise were in emergency and Ian had been told that he would need a general anaesthetic so the doctors could attempt to manipulate his hip back into position. There was a 95% chance they could achieve this. Denise was wearing a neck brace and her neck had been X-rayed. She was OK and thankfully they both had a bit of colour in their faces. Ian was in good spirits and making the best of the situation. The cardiologist had checked Ian out. The air ballooning staff were there translating and managing the situation.

We returned to the group. You can imagine the discussion and debrief that ensued. We were all so lucky. We were confident that Ian and Densie were in good hands. The hospital was good.

The six of us who were in the baskets on the down side that hit the ground: Dan, me Ken. Dave, Simon, and Ian M all received pretty hard head  knocks on landing. It was like being hit twice on the back of the head with a bit of four by two. Ken said he looked at me after landing and thought I was stunned. I looked at Dan and he was more than speechless.

The group that were in the baskets above our basket seemed not to have sustained head knocks but were thrown about more randomly. Kerith has a severely jarred ankle and Mary has a sore knee. Reg has sore ribs and back. Everyone probably has a few aches and pains.

Ian and Denise returned to the hotel at five o’clock and spent the evening resting. They will rest today and then work out what they intend to do. Fortunately we are in a lovely boutique hotel with great staff and gorgeous gardens and we don’t have far, by our standards to get to Istanbul where we have more down time to allow for Ian’s recovery.

The air ballooning staff told that was their worse landing ever as the wind factor was 65 kms an hour at ground landing point. There is some debate in the group about this measure means but that’s what was said.

How did it happen you might ask? Well we were to take a sunrise ride and we were  ready to go at 5:15 am. When we did leave at 6:15 am  our first view on arriving at the area where all the hot air balloons went up from was there were over sixty balloons in the air. It was a magic sight. However as we alighted our hot air balloon all the other balloons had landed and once up we were the only balloon  in the air. No one thought anything of this because the ride was so beautiful. Clearly the balloon company thought they could manage one more ride.  

This hot air balloon ride was my fourth and previously the landings have been up right little bumps, nothing to worry about.

Life is ironic because we have been so careful on the roads and suddenly we are in Turkey which is incredibly developed and familiar with all the signs of civilization that we know so well……the golden arches and the Shell servos to name a few. There are tourist and tourist buses  everywhere and suddenly when we do what tourist do this happens. I reckon we are safer as adventure travellers if you get my drift.

The team spent a happy evening doing what tourists do here. Photographing the sunset, attending a display of dervish dancing and then dinner and a show which saw Reg up dancing with the belly dancers.

Our balloon:Cappadocia