THE RESCUE

So here we were in Central Turkey early in the AM stuck in a precarious balance on the side of a fairly large plateau..in a basket of a rapidly deflating hot air balloon.  We saw the ground crew arriving far below and heard our pilot issuing multiple frantic sounding commands.  Everyone was hanging on and afraid to "rock the boat" so to speak.  Steve, being an experienced paraglider, didn't think it was that dangerous...but he was the only one. I was really nervous.  The ground crew climbed the hill with this big new canister of air and we carefully hoisted it aboard so as not to topple over.  It was too little, too late.  They finally decided to "bounce us" down the steep slope hanging on to ropes attached to the balloon.  So we slipped a few feet, righted back up, then slipped a few more, tipped, righted...all the way down the ridge until we could get enough level ground to secure the balloon basket.  Finally, somewhat secured, we crawled up the basket, and with a lot of help, we each were hoisted to the ground. It was over!

Lugging fuel canister up the hill

Finally down the ridge

...and the power lines were too close!

Back in the van!

 This was not my first time in a hot air balloon, but I decided it would be my last time.  I think we should have gotten a refund, but all we got was a bottle of champagne, which no one felt like drinking at that time.