Nat Locke: peer pressure made me go hot air ballooning in Turkey and I regret nothing
I made this decision off the back of some fairly awful hot air ballooning accidents, including one in Brazil where the balloon caught fire, and another in Turkey where the pilot was killed when the balloon crashed. The recency of these horrendous events seemed to be the universe sending me a sign.
Then a colleague told me about his experience ballooning in Cappadocia. It was a special father-son bonding experience where halfway through, the pilot started yelling that he was going to drop the balloon down close to the ground and someone would have to jump out of the basket.
Now, this is not as easy as it sounds, because the sides of the basket are quite high, so it requires someone with a reasonable degree of flexibility and strength to nail a ladder-less dismount without the balloon actually being on the ground.
As the youngest and fittest passenger, my colleague was deemed the best candidate, and as the balloon got close to the ground, he was ordered to leap from the basket. Meanwhile, the balloon then ascended again, and everyone else got to have a lovely time, while my mate rolled around in the dirt, far from the landing or take-off zone. Perhaps the biggest injustice of all is that he didn't get a refund.
So, after examining all of this evidence, I assured my parents that I would not partake. And yes, I know I'm too old to be making behavioural promises to my parents. Also, when I arrived in Cappadocia, I changed my mind completely, so you might argue that I'm also too old to be rebelling against my parents, but here we are.
So what prompted this complete U-turn? What a very good question.
Essentially, I was a victim of peer group pressure — and yes, I'm too old for that too — in that as soon as one other person in our tour group said she was going to do it, I jumped on board, figuratively and literally. That, and the assurance from our tour guide who ran me through the accreditation requirements for the balloon pilots and before I knew it I was handing my 230 euros over to a man with a briefcase. This was a tiny bit weird, given the currency of Turkey is the lira, but I was prepared to overlook it for the Instagram pics.
The problem with breaking a promise to your parents is that when it actually comes time to do the thing, there's a little nagging voice in your head reminding you that you're tempting fate. The headlines start writing themselves in front of your eyes. You can even see which horrendous photo the news services will pluck from your social media to report your demise.
And these are not the sort of thoughts to be having when you're standing in the pre-dawn darkness watching a bunch of hot air balloons being inflated. Mainly this is because it's not a particularly sophisticated process. The deflated balloons lie limply on the ground with the baskets on their sides, while enormous fans are used to blast air into them. It's noisy too, because a whole bunch of generators are required to power the fans. They can't blast the heat in until the balloons are mostly inflated, so you have a fair bit of time to contemplate your life choices.
Once the balloon is up and ready, though, it's a mad flurry of activity to get everyone loaded in, as we scramble up the stepladder and throw our legs into the basket. There is a lot of yelling and a lot of bursts of heat and before you know it, you're up, up and away, floating across the magnificent valley as the sun peeps over the horizon.
Oh, and 200 other balloons are doing the same thing. How do they not bump into one another? I have no idea, but we didn't come close. There are only four or five balloons launching from any one site, so maybe everyone has their patch? I don't know. All I know is I survived to tell the tale and it was an extraordinary experience. Truly magical.
So, my conscience is mostly clear, and I'll take this as a sign to defy my parents on more occasions.
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