There's a particular kind of quiet that exists only before sunrise, and Göreme has perfected it. At 06:08 the valley is still mostly grey, the fairy chimneys just outlines, waiting for light to give them shape. Then the burners start. That sound, a low mechanical roar, out of place in something so ancient. It shouldn't work. It does.
I counted the balloons for a while, then stopped. Somewhere past thirty I lost interest in the number and started paying attention to the color instead: coral bleeding into lavender, the rock formations underneath turning the color of old bone. Nobody told this landscape it was lunar, it just decided to be. Volcanic ash, wind, a few million years of patience. I'm standing here with a coffee going cold in my hand and it feels almost rude to be witnessing this for free.
My camera doesn't do well with pastel light, it never has, but I loaded it anyway. Some mornings you shoot for the frame, some mornings you shoot so you remember you were actually there. This was the second kind. The shutter clicks and somewhere a rooster answers, absurdly, like it's reviewing the shot.
I think about how many people are up in those baskets right now, cameras out, probably taking the same photo I am from the ground. Funny how a shared view doesn't make the moment less yours. There's no one else on this ridge. Just me, the cold stone underfoot, the smell of dust and propane, and a sky doing something it does every clear morning here, whether anyone watches or not. Meraviglioso, and slightly ridiculous, that this is just Tuesday in Cappadocia.
