First of all, Kapadokya (Cappadocia) is not a town or state. The term refers to a region of the Central Anatolian Plateau area of Turkey, that is world famous for its geological formations known as "fairy chimneys". It is also known for its underground cities. The area is so popular with tourists that there are about 8 different balloon companies, each with several balloons that carry anywhere from 10 to 35 people at a time. All told, the balloon industry in Kapadokya can carry more than 500 people per flight.

The company I worked for had two balloons. One could carry 24 the other 20. For those that know balloons, we had a Cameron A-400 (400,000 cu. ft.) and a Cameron Z-315 (315,000 cu. ft.).
The 35 passenger balloons of the other companies were significantly larger than 500,000 cu. ft.!
Those are large balloons!

You may ask (and maybe not, but I'm going to tell you anyway) how I came to fly balloons in Turkey of all places. Well, it all started right after I got my commercial balloon pilots license. I was looking for a way to continue to make a living flying balloons in the winter months, when I'm not flying in Teton Valley.
I saw an ad on the internet for pilots wanted in Turkey. I did a little investigation into where and what and from the photos I saw, I thought it looked like a very cool place to fly, so I looked into it a little more.
At that time, the ad stated that the minimum requirement was for the pilot to have at least 300 hours.
Since then I had looked forward to the day that I had enough hours to qualify.

Towards the end of our season in Teton Valley, Joanne and I were talking about our options for the winter. Although I had mentioned to her when we first met, that I could pretty much go anywhere in the winter and had told her of my dream of someday flying Turkey, it was one of those "someday" things that you never really think is going to happen. Like I said, Joanne and I were discussing our options, so naturally the subject of exotic places to fly (like Turkey and Australia) came up. I went to show her the old pilots wanted ad. That is when I noticed that there was a brand new ad for pilots wanted in Turkey so I responded. A few emails, lots of waiting and some cash made it happen. The most difficult part was the 6 weeks of waiting to hear if my application for work visa had been approved (so I could board a plane a few days later) or whether my hopes and dreams had been dashed.