Awoke to the 4:30 Muslim call to prayer this morning. Ten of us piled into vans and road the bumpy roads to the site of our "beautiful ballon" for the highlight adventure of our trip. Moon setting, sun rising, we lifted off in our 16 person vehicle and soared over the strange and magical tufa landscape of Cappadocia's hills, valleys, and towns explored by foot yesterday. This amazing hour long ride was truly a "high", followed by champaign, certificates, and t-shirts.
After breakfast we gathered the whole group for the day first visiting a beautiful, upscale carpet school, where we watched women hand-looming, from the silk worm on and were tempted to spend thousands on magnificent Turkish Oriental rugs.Open air lunch break and more to our budget shopping at a panoramic viewpoint above the conical formations in the valley below.
This afternoon we visited our Grand Circle sponsered school. We joined a 4 - 5 grade class of children eager to show us their work and introduce themselves in English. We exchanged songs and when we each, in turn, announced our professions they responded, in kind, with their career dreams. Turkey's school system is not dissimilar to ours. We visited the new science lab that we GCT travelers helped pay for.
Turkey has some beautiful pottery and Cappadocia is home to one of its well-known potters, who hosted us in his studio in a cave with a demonstration of this artestry. Of course, the cave opened up into a beautiful showroom :-)
It was a hot, long day of activities today and we were getting weary, but Salih had one last surprise for us -a delicious Mongul style dinner in a "cave" restaurant. A sunset drive home to pack up tonight for the next adventure. We are nearing the end now, so Ankara, here we come.
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