Europe Trip Day 16: Gas Powered

Ahh what a bad nights sleep we both had. We were tossing and turning in perpetration for our balloon flight which left at 4.30am. It also didn't help that our hotel room windows face directly onto a busy and noisy little road. At 4.30am we woke up and got changed, then waited in the hotel lobby with 3 other guests for it pickup to arrive. It did so on time, driving us about 10 minutes out of town to the office of the hot air balloon company. There were about 40 other people there already grabbing a light breakfast. After waiting around for longer than expected, about 40 minutes, we were hustled into another van and driven to our launch sight. There were about 30 balloons in the sky already and about 20 still on the ground. The weather was perfect with very little breeze and a clear blue sky. We jumped into the basket of one of the balloons that was already inflated with around 16 other people and took off.
Over the flight we climbed to a max height of about 600 metres, but we also did a lor of low flying, such as skimming through valleys in-between the rock formations. The view was really beautiful - half of this is due to the sight of all these colourful balloons lit up by the morning sunshine. After about an hour we came in to land, which was a bit of a dodgy affair. For some reason they picked a landing site on the top of a hill, and as we came over the crest, the wind caught us. The pilot dropped a rope for guys on the ground tried to slow the balloon down with, in conjunction with the pilot burning of some gas in the opposite direction to the wind. We ended up stopping, but were perched about half a metre from the edge of ravine. We celebrated our near death experience with some champagne, and were then driven home to our hotel.
After our bad nights sleep Jackie was feeling tired so she took a quick nap, then we grabbed a more full breakfast, and checked out of the hotel. We were moving to a cave hotel further up the mountain for a night, so we lugged our bags up and checked in. It's a very nicely done room, however the disadvantage of these cave rooms is they are damn cold. We were planning on relaxing for a bit but it was just too cold in the room, so we headed out for a coffee and some sunshine.
Our next appointment was at 5pm so we burnt some time reading till then. We were taking a 2hr sunset ATV tour, but spent the first 20 minutes of the tour waiting around at the depo for the rest of our tour members to show up. Once everyone arrived we donned our face masks, hair nets and helmets and hit the road. We visited three or so cultural sites, which weren't particularly amazing, but it was great to be out there thrashing the ATVs along the dusty roads. I got told off twice for hooning, as the guides wanted everyone to drive like grannies. Never mind the entire time we were driving they were doing tricks, such as riding on two wheels...
We finished up the tour watching the sunset, then moseyed on home in the darkness. Jackie and I grabbed a very average dinner (we are trying to find something other than kebap), then hit the cave for a shower. We are lying in our very chilly room writing this, hoping for a quiet nights sleep (which should be possible given we are underground)...