Well, we landed in Dubai and were expecting to quickly hop on our plane to New Delhi, but quickly found out our flight was cancelled and we would be on the red-eye flying into India. So we got about 9 hours to check out Dubai! The city is pretty much Vegas without the gambling and alcohol. Huge buildings and shopping everywhere!! Here are some pictures from the day:
The ski-hill inside the Mall of the Emirates. No big deal!!
The GIANT aquarium at the Dubai Mall
Tallest building in the world.
We are currently sitting in the Amman airport waiting for our flight to Dubai and connection to New Delhi. We can’t believe our life right now. What an amazing time we have had so far! We have now been on the road for 56 days and loved every minute of it. Jordan was no exception!
On our last update we were in Egypt our final day there, waiting to take a ferry to Jordan. Our very last memories of Egypt were definitely the lowlight of the trip so far. We had to wait for our ferry in the dingiest terminal you can imagine, and of course our 1 hour wait, became close to 5 hours by the time the ferry left. We were all expecting the worst when we got on the boat; if the terminal was that bad imagine what the ferry could look like! What a pleasant surprise! The boat was actually quite nice! The good surprises kept coming as we arrived in Aquiba, Jordan. Immigration was a breeze, the streets were clean, we were encouraged to walk around the city and explore it at night, and the food DELICIOUS!
It all couldn’t have come at a better time as I was quite homesick that day. I was missing the birth of “the girls” first baby!! My friend Amy gave birth that morning to an adorable baby boy, and I would have given anything to be there with my girlfriends for this momentous occasion. Congratulations to Amy and Shane on little Parker! I love him already!
Our first morning in Aquiba Chris and I decided to remove some of the weight from our bag and mail a package home. Chris had bought a hand carved stone statue in Egypt and as you can imagine a stone statue is not light! When we arrived at the post office we were sent directly to the customs office where they wanted to look at everything we were sending back. Well let me tell you, that stone statue caused quite a commotion. Two men were looking it over and then asked for our passports. He made a few calls gave our passport info to someone over the phone. (Nice purchase Chris). They were both asking lots of questions; where we got it, how much we paid for it, and if it was real…. Yup, real. As in, some stolen treasure from a tomb or something. Hmmm. Maybe not such a bad purchase after all… these guys think its real! They then told us an expert was going to have to come look at it to ensure it was not authentic. Ok, we’ll wait. While we sat in this customs office we had about 10 different people come in the room, check out the statue, and apologize for the inconvenience. They didn’t want us to have a bad feeling about their country. We met the Post office manager, he yelled at the 2 guys to turn on the air conditioning so we were comfortable, and finally the expert and her (yes HER! Women work here!!!) entourage came to look at the statue. She took one look at it, basically rolled her eyes and ok’d the statue. I guess it’s not such a good fake after all! They then helped us pack everything up and gave us a great price to ship everything because they were so sorry for the inconvenience! Such nice people!! We would totally come back here.
That day we drove to Wadi Rum where we went on a 4×4 jeep tour of the desert and slept in a Bedouin desert camp. What a cool day. The desert was awesome, sunset amazing, and when we got bat to the camp they had candles in brown paper bags lighting up the trail to our tents and to the fire! It was so beautiful! Unfortunately that night I didn’t have the best sleep. I’m not sure if it was getting tangled in the mosquito netting, the laughing hyenas, or the cat trying to get in the tent (ok Chris didn’t seem to think the cat was trying to get in the tent, but I was sure it was actually in there at one point)… but it wasn’t my favourite night on the trip.
The following two nights were spent at Petra! WOW! I had no idea that Petra was as big as it is. We spent 9 hours hiking around Petra looking at the tombs and after dinner returned for 2 hours of Petra by night! A totally amazing sight. I would recommend it for everyone!
We also had the opportunity to experience a Turkish bath. It was the most vigorous massage/scrub down you could imagine, but a funny/relaxing time none the less. Everyone in the group left not sure what exactly happed. Chris felt a bit man handled (you can ask him directly for his more “personal” story!) and I wasn’t sure what to think.. For a modest region where the women don’t show their shoulders, I’m not sure how it was ok to be scrubbed down by some man… part of me thought he should be paying me for the treatment, not the other way around. Regardless, I left feeling much cleaner than when I went in, so all’s well that ends well!
Our last major stop on the tour was to the Dead Sea. It is the lowest point in the world and the water has over 30% more salt than other sea’s or oceans. What a crazy feeling. When you sit down in the water no matter how shallow or deep it is, you float! It was really fun to relax in the sea and cover ourselves in the mineral rich mud. A definite must to experience if ever in Jordan.
On our last and final day we had a city tour of Amman which is a pretty nice city. We got to see how the wealthy side of Jordan lives, and they live well! I was dead tired by this point and opted to shop with some of the girls for the afternoon, while Chris went to Jerash to explore the Roman ruins. As this city was buried under sand for so long, it is one of the best preserved ruins on earth. Chris had a great time there, and liked it even better than Petra!
So that completes our time in Jordan. We loved it here. All the people are very nice, and it is quite a bit more progressive than we thought it would be. We have said goodbye to the new friends we made on our tour and look forward to the new one’s we will meet tomorrow in India!
Love to everyone. (Especially Amy and Parker!)
Ashlyn and Chris
The last few days in Egypt has got me and Chris loving the country more and more. I’ll start back on Tuesday in Aswan, where we caught the felucca. That was an awesome experiance. Felucca’s a small sail boats that fit about 8 people and our two drivers. The day was spent laying on the boat, traveling back and fourth across the Nile as we traveled north on our way Luxor. It was one of the most beautiful and relaxing days on the trip so far. The day was spent sightseeing, reading, and basically drifing in and out of conciousness! It was fantastic! We sailed right into darkness and even spent the night on the boat!
Here are some pictures from the felucca:
On Wednesday morning we finished our trip by boat and mini bus and visited Edfu Temple outside of Luxor on our way to the hotel. It’s really interesting to see all the diffent styles of temples and tombs across the country. Edfu was no exception, and an amazing sight. We happen to be in Egypt during their Easter so there aren’t many stores open and it’s party time everywhere! A very interesting time to be here. A few pictures from Edfu:
Luxor has been amazing. Our hotel looked over The Nile and Luxor temple. It had incredible views both day and night. We visited Luxor temple at night while it was all lit up! Wow. The pillars there, although they look like they are made of many blocks, are actually solid stone. They still don’t know how they were made, and how the giant blocks were placed on top!
Luxor Temple at night.
That evening we also visited Karnak temple. Another amazing sight. The sheer size of these things are striking, let alone the hyroglyphics carved throughout.
The following day we visited the Vally of the Kings and Hatshepsut’s temple. We were able to go inside the temples and see where the famous King tutankamos (King Tut) tomb was discovered.
Hatshepsut’s Temple
It’s really hard to say what our favoriate sight of Egypt has been so far. It has completely changed our first impression of the country and now even think we might return one day, after we retire for a Nile cruise and another look at these enormous temples. The pictures really don’t do them justice, but hope they can give you some idea of what we have been up to.
We have been out of Internet access for a bit. We drove North of Cairo to Mount Siani where we climed to the summet to watch the sunset. What an incredible view. Although we’ve both been to the top of other mountians before, it was really cool to see mountians without a single tree in sight!
Us at the summit.
Today we have spent the day in Nuwiba, swimming in the Red Sea! Wow! We spent a couple hours snorkeling right infront of the beach hotel we are staying at. Chris and I are staying in little wodden house right on the beach, where our bed is in the loft! It’s awesome here and we really wish we could stay longer.
The cabins at the resort.
Chris dancing with the locals after dinner.
Tomorrow we will be taking a ferry to Jordan. We have really enjoyed our time in Egypt. A bit put off by the pollution, garbage everywhere, and the food at the beginging, but getting out of Cairo fixed all that, and the amazing sights had us loving it in the end! Just to touch on the food, for the most part we have been given buns and hard boiled eggs to eat. I have a feeling it’s more the tour than the actual food in Egypt. I have had some amazing eggplant dishes for dinner, but other than that, it’s been carbs, carbs, carbs! I’m dying for fresh fruit!
Talk to you from Jordan!
Love Ashlyn and Chris
Way oh way oh way oooo aaaah ooo…
Walk Like an Egyptian!
We have now been in Egypt for 4 days and there is so much to cover! Our first thoughts on Cairo was “that city needs a makeover”. It’s Dirty! Ok, I have to be fair, we didnt’ see the whole city by any stretch. It has over 18 million people so I’m sure there are many great parts. But what we did see astounded us. We were staying right downtown and it seemed every where we looked was filthy, Loads of half finished empty brick buildings everywhere, and the Nile… don’t get me started.
We spent our first full day walking around, dodging traffic, and then visited the Egyptian Museum. The collection of artifacts they have here is astounding! We visited the museum with our group leader who was able to give us a pretty good overview of ancient egypt and a good idea of what we will be seeing over the next 10 days.
On day two we set out to see the Pyramids of Giza. Incredible. How the Egyptians built these 4500 years ago is unimaginable. The inside is covered in red granite brought in from Luxor! Now anyone who had granite countertops can understand just how heavy this stuff is. Could you imagine moving giant blocks of it! The whole thing was really overwhelming and gave us our first sweet taste of what Egypt has in store!
That night Chris had his first ride on an overnight train to Aswan. It was a nice train and we even had our own private cabin!Aswan is in Southern Egypt and has much more of a African feel to it. It was great to wake up on the train and see the (much cleaner) Nile, surrounded by palm trees!
Later in the day we went to a Nubian Village for a camel ride and dinner. Dinner was good. The camel ride was… less good. I was given a camel that was not happy to be ridden. Before I was even told to get on, my camel was yelling and screaming and carrying on like an angry ewok. I got on regardless and even after the first few minutes of the ride, I knew I was in for quite an experience. While the other camels walked and ran as instructed to do so, my camel, Whisky, really just did whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted. the other camels seemed to go straight and follow each other, Whiskey turned around, decided which direction he would go regardless of the way the handler pulled him. Lucky me seemed to have the only bad camel that even two handlers couldn’t control. Near the end of the ride (which was about an hour) Whiskey decided to stop. No pulling, or kicking, or whipping could get this camel to move. Finally, both boys came behind the camel and proceeded to whip it simultaneously. Well that got him going! The rope (reins) pulled out from the boys hands and I was off! Have I mentioned how tall camels are? Well after a few seconds of running, good old Whiskey decided to abruptly turn around. This is the moment I made my dismount over the top of the saddle, reaching for the camels neck, and tucking and diving onto the Sahara desert! Although it was a long way down, I was lucky enough to be dropped in some pretty nice sand which really cushioned the blow! At that point one of the boys cam running over to me. “Mame Sorry! Sorry Mame! Sorry Mame! You ok? sorry Mame!”. I slowly brush the sand off and stood up. “Again” the boy asked? I looked over to the other boy who at this point had caught the camel and was trying to get him to sit. “No thanks, I’ll walk”.
As I rounded the final corner and saw the rest of my group in the distance getting off their camels, Chris started walking towards me. I was laughing and crying by the time he reached me. It was the funniest experience that has happened to me so far in Egypt, and also the most painful. Bruise pictures to follow! I think that’s the last camel ride I will be going on. Sadly we have a donkey ride coming up in 2 days. Thankfully they are lower to the ground.
This morning we woke up at 3AM so we could catch our ride to Abu Simbel. To get there you have to get into the military convoy that leaves each morning before sunrise. They claim that this convoy is so that there are other vehicles to support yours if you break down in the desert. Okay. That’s probably part of the reason. However, as we drove through military checkpoint after military checkpoint, we started to get the impression that there could be other reasons. Not to mention that the morning started with people checking the underside of our vehicle for explosives! We talked to our tour leader at lunch to ask him about it, and he said that Egypt is very cautious to take every precaution possible to protect their tourists because they are such great importance to the economy.
Abu Simbel is absolutely amazing, and probably more impressive than the pyramids. We were lucky enough to get there before all of the other tour busses so got a great look without the crowds. The two tombs each have may rooms and statures inside, and are covered in hieroglyphics. It was another surreal experience seeing them in person.
Tomorrow we set out on the Nile traveling by felucca (sail boat) where we will spend the day and night on board. I’m hoping that I have better luck with the boat than the camel, as the Nile is definitely not a place I want to fall into!
Love you and miss you,
Ashlyn and Chris
We spent our last and final two days in Turkey taking in more of what Istanbul had to offer. My favourite part has to be the Bazaars! We spent a few hours (over a few visits) inside the Grand Bazaar, where I found myself a few silver treasures! Poor Chris followed me around from stall to stall, looking at basically the same things, until I found exactly what I wanted. Chris then haggled for it, and then we walked away leaving it behind, only to return later and buy it for their “best price”!
I LOVED them all, but the lanterns were my favorite stands!
We also spent some time at the Spice Bazaar. Sadly we couldn’t buy much. If we were heading home I would have purchased loose teas, a few spices, and a few kilos of Turkish delight. I guess these purchases will have to wait for our next trip. I did however buy some candied ginger! Unfortunately we went to the spice bazaar in the afternoon, post our 2 hour Bosporus Cruise. The candied ginger would have been helpful during the boat trip as the Bosporus is a bit or a rocky ride! It was great to get to see Istanbul from the water. What a massive city. It really is much more modern that I had envisioned it to be.
Yum Yum!
On the boat
Our final night we decided to splurge a bit on dinner and went to a restaurant with an amazing view. It was incredible and really a must do for anyone visiting Istanbul. The Restaurant is called Seven Hills and was situated right in-between Aya Sofia and the Blue Mosque. We had desert on the roof top patio surrounded by thousands of years of history all lit up. We both agreed that we have seen many amazing things so far on our trip, but this was the best place to enjoy a meal together.
Amazing view at dinner!
Today we start the next leg of our trip and we are currently en-route to Cairo where we will be meeting up with our first tour. We have now been traveling for 40 days. That’s 120 meals eaten together! We have had the best time traveling as a pair but we’re looking forward to meeting some new people. I know traveling with Chris has been even better than I imagined. I thought it was going to be tough being with the same person 24 hours a day, but knew there was no one else in the world I would rather do this with. It turns out, it hasn’t been tough at all. Sure we’ve shared a few moments of silent frustration, but we’ve had way more times of laughter and created so many incredible memories to last a lifetime.
Looking forward to see what adventures Egypt has in store!
I have been posting more of our pictures to my facebook, so if you care to see more of what we have been up to, you can check them out there.
Love Ashlyn and Chris.
We arrived in Istanbul after a 13.5 hour bus ride from Pamukkale. (The guy said it was a 10 hour bus trip. I guess they don’t count any of the stops.) We arrived late and pretty much just crashed when we arrived.
Yesterday morning we decided to take a walking tour of the city. We’re staying in the Sultanahmet area of Istanbul, which is the old city so we thought we’d be able to find the meeting point for the tour pretty easily. Nope. This city is a complete maze. And it seems that Turkey has outlawed street signs across the land, which is especially helpful. Lots of directions that you get from people sound like this: Walk 400 meters and turn down *insert street here*. If you’re coming to Turkey, be prepared for every single person to provide directions that includes the measurement of 400 meters. They love 400 meters. If it’s 50 feet, it’s 400 meters. If it’s 3 kilometers, it’s 400 meters. 400 meters is actually not helpful at all. So anyway, we got a bit turned around in the maze and ended up taking a taxi to our location to start the tour.
Once on the tour we had a great day checking out the city of Istanbul. The layout of the city is great for tourists. Most of the big attrractions are located in one area and you’re able to easily walk around and see a bunch of them in a day. Yesterday the tour took us to; the Blue Mosque, Ayasophia, Grand Bazar (which was closed yesterday), Tombs of the Sultans and a few other sights. Our guide was a little bit special. Super nice lady, but seemed to lack any ability to organize the group, so it was basically like herding cats for 10 hours. She also seemed to specialize in walking past interesting and important sights and not explain what they were unless somebody asked, which is a strange specialization for a tour guide. At the end of the day, we saw some really great sights and good a good portion of the history, so we’re pretty happy with that!!
Overall Istanbul is a great city, and you can really sense that it’s the meeting place a ton of different cultures. It has a very European feel in the area that we are staying. Lots of great restaurants that have long patios spilling out on to the sidewalk. Fashion seems pretty big here, with lots of different styles all over the place. The prices are definitely more in line with Paris and London than with the rest of Turkey. We’re looking forward to getting out and exploring the city more and seeing what the Grand Bazar has to offer.
Here are a few pictures from our first day in Istanbul:
Inside the Blue Mosque
The Ayasophia. Was a church, then a mosque, now a museum.
Inside Ayasophia
If you can keep your tumb inside this pillar inside Ayasophia and turn it around a full 360 degrees, your wish will be granted. Ashlyn did it!
One of the good things, and possibly the only good thing about taking the 10 hour bus from Pamukkale to Istanbul is that we have plenty of time to update this thing!
We spent 2 days in Pamukkale and are excited to be moving on to Istanbul. Pamukkale was a great sight, but definitely a place that you can drive into and out of on the same day if anyone else is planning a Turkey trip. The big attraction in the town is a mountain that has a natural spring and has deposited a ton of minerals, leaving a pure white mountainside and a bunch of collecting pools. There are also a number of ruins further up the mountain, which are also good to see.
Back in the day the pools would have been huge, taking up the whole mountainside, but after a number of hotels and other attempted attractions divereted water for their own needs, there is barely a trickle coming down the hillside. We’re glad we got a chance to see it. It didn’t look like anyone was stopping the development because there were still a number of other pools being built at the base of the mountain.
Here are some pictures from our stop:
Just starting the trek up the mountian. You have to do it barefoot and walk through the pools and running water. It was pretty cool.
Ashlyn making her way across one of the pools.
A view of the collecting pools and pollution in the distance.
Us at the Theatre in the ruins.
Ashlyn swimming in the ‘Ancient Pools’ at the top of the mountain. I’m pretty sure this pool is one of the main reasons that the water isn’t flowing too good these days.
After a few great days in Kas, we’re hitting the road again this morning on our way to Pamukkale. Turkey is somewhere that we’re definitely going to be returning to. Each place we’ve been in so far we’ve ended up staying longer than we had originally planned, so we’ve had to cut places from the original itinerary.
Kas has been pretty relaxing. Both days we took boat cruises, one toured a sunken city, the other stayed inside the sheltered bay where Kas is. For 50 Lira you spend the entire day on the water, and they severe you a homecooked meal on the boat as well. Highly recommended for anyone making their way to Turkey! Here are some pictures of our time in Kas:
Breakfast at the hotel. The island in the distance is a greek island with a little town.
The colour of the water in the marina. We’ve never seen a marina this clean!
Swimming before lunch.
One of the best meals we’ve had in Turkey!
Sunset from our balcony.
Ok, where were we…
Groeme…
After the Balloon ride in Goreme, our Pension Manager offered to drive us to our next destination!! The bus ride to Antalya (on the coast) is about 8 hours, but he was going to a city just 40 kms before the town, and said driving a car there take only 5 hours! We could get a ride from him for free, arrive 3 hours sooner, and just take a short bus ride into the city. Sounds like a plan! He was planning on leaving at 10:00am just 30 minutes after the bus left. Great. We would be in Antalya by 4:00 at the latest, time to enjoy the sunset by the sea, have a great dinner, and enjoy the old city!
Well as it turns out, as nice as Bakir was, he’s not exactly prompt. We didn’t get on the road until about 12:00… The roads in Turkey are…interesting. Actually the roads are fine, it’s the drivers that are a bit nuts. The signs, speed limits, and lines on the roads are mearly a suggestion, but each driver decided how fast they will go, where in the lanes (or out) they will drive, and just when they want to pass. No passing lanes necessairy.
By 4:00 we all were getting hungry and we clearly weren’t close to our destination, so we stopped for lunch. It was actually an amazing lunch grilled lamb, fresh tomato and cucumber salad, homemade yogurt and grilled bread. Delish! AND…Bakir insisted on paying, Sweet, Thanks Bakir! We hit the road again and by 5:30 (1 1/2 hours after we thought we would be checking into our hotel) we arrived at the bus station in a city 79 kms from Antalya. The bus for Antalya left in 5 minutes which was GREAT! Bakir brought us in, set us up with the bus, and wouldn’t accept any money for gas or lunch. What an amazing guy! So the ride wasn’t perfect, but we were almost there…. Not so fast. Turns out this bus to Antalya was the milk run!!! On a positive note we really got to see how Turkish people live and shop and eat in 2 different cities, but it really wasn’t what we were looking for. At 8:00 (that’s 2.5 hours and 79kms for those that are keeping track) we arrived at the bus station in Antalya. At this point we aren’t exactly sure why we didn’t take a cab to the hotel, but we got on the city bus. Did we mention that we don’t speak Turkish? By 8:30 we had arrived at the old town; A maze of tiny streets within the old Roman walls. It was so amazing, but we were tired and really just wanted to find our hotel. Like a needle in a haystack, I tell ya! There are no street signs and 100’s of Pensions, restaurants and shops! 30 minutes later, 5-6 different directions given, we found our hotel. 9:00 PM. Awesome! Sadly we didn’t feel like exploring too much at that point.
This morning we woke up excited to take on the day. The Pension we stayed at was absolutly gorgeous. It had an amazing garden/courtyard right in the middle of it and we were served a fantastic breakfast in the middle of the courtyard. We fell in love immediately, and wished we were staying longer, but our time in Turkey is short so had to keep moving. We walked around the pretty town, got lost a few times and decided on renting a car to drive down the coast Here is a picture taken a couple blocks from our hotel:
They don’t seem to have any large rental companies here… seems that everywhere you rent a car, you pay to have some guy from the original location to take the bus to where you want to leave the car, meet him at the bus station and hand back over the car. Strange but true. So we found the least sketchy place (still super sketchy), and the guy who spoke the most english, and rented the car. He was really helpful and drove with us out of the walled town and then told us how to get out of the REALLY BUSY, CRAZY city (with no street signs. Well we missed our first turn off and decided to stop there, get gas, and more info…
As soon as the car was filled (it was full service) all these gas station attendants start yelling in turkish and pointing under the car. We had sprung a gas leak. Great! Did we mention we don’t speak Turkish?
Gas was pouring out from under the car onto the ground. All of a sudden our rental car was surrounded by Turkish people. Some Employees. Some citizens. An owner. Everyone. The one man that spoke a few words of english asked for our papers (rental agreement) and immediately called the rental office. They all pushed the car off to the side and moments later had brought out 2 chairs into the sunshine for Chris and I to sit at and wait for the guy from the car rental place to come meet us. How hospitable. Moments later we were given 2 cups of tea and a table! People really are very nice here. The rental guy eventually showed up, with a new car, and was very apologetic! So, with a new car, we hit the road. Here are some pictures of the Great Turkish Gas Adventure:
At the gas station after the excitement. These are the chairs they brought us. The guy on the right is the owner of the station. He brought us Turkish Tea and a table right after this picture was taken. He was Awesome!!
The greatest Gas Station in the history of Gas Stations.
Leaving the City
We have to say, although we’ve had a few rough days, we LOVE this place. People couldn’t be nicer (EASILY the nicest people we have ever met), the scenery is to die for and so is the food.
Along our drive today we stopped at Olympos and visited some roman ruins as we walked to the beach. Not too shabby!
We are now in the town of Kas (Kash). We arrived right after sunset so are very interested to see what it looks like in the day! By night it’s amazing and we have a hotel room that looks right over the mediterranean, at a fraction of the cost of other hotels along the way. Loving life right now.
Oh also, and most importantly, we didn’t have to wear our jackets and scarfs today. We wore sandals!
Love you all!
Ashlyn and Chris
Hanging out in a cave gets boring, you’re probably not shocked by that. So, we decided to get a tour of the valleys surrounding Groeme…on ATVs. It was an awesome tour that got us back into a lot of areas we wouldn’t otherwise get to see. If anyone is making their way out to Groeme you can skip the Open Air Museum and just go on an ATV tour and you’ll see all the same stuff, most of if better than the museum. Here are a couple of pictures:
Than yesterday we finally got to get up in the balloon. We were a bit concerned that it wasn’t going to happen again after we heard that the time was changing. Time changes in Canada are pretty simple. Everyone changes their clocks before they go to bed, and the next day life moves on. Turkey uses a slightly different strategy. They function on two times for a little while (at least in Goreme). People either use ‘old time’ or ‘new time’. But, just to make things even more helpful, you’re never sure which businesses or people run on which times. Nice.
So Ashlyn went over to the balloon company we were using and asked them about the time change, and they had absolutely no idea that the time was even changing. After trying to help them realize the time was changing, she came come and we just hoped that someone would actually pick us up the following moring at 5:00AM for our balloon trip. They did. It was definitely a once in a lifetime experience…and man, those pilots are good! they drop you down into the valleys and lift you back out inches away from the cliffs. It was pretty cool until the guy decided to land. He picked a nice little quick flat piece of land tucked between powerlines and a cliff. It was a bit strange and everyone on the balloon kept asking about the powerlines, but the guy didn’t seem concerned. Somehow he was able to turn the balloon on a dime and get us to a safe spot and we finished the ride with a champange and a certificate that we had taken the flight. Why anyone would require a certificate is beyond me, but now we have them. Here are a few pics:
chris and ashlyn's blog 