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WE were up before the day's first call to prayer. I was already brushing my teeth when I heard the speakers on the nearby minaret broadcast the muezzin's cry heralding the imminent dawn and hastening the Muslim faithful.

Judging by the warm, kitcheny odor in the air, the baker at the Hotel Perissia had gotten up long before we had. It smelled like simits, the sesame-coated bagel-pretzel hybrids so common in Turkey. Did I really want to abandon such a comfortable place for the cold and dark outside?

But we had been promised a remarkable experience that morning: soaring at the pleasure of the wind in a hot-air balloon above Cappadocia, where nature has carved the soft volcanic tufa into a fantasy landscape of fairy chimneys.

Cappadocia's terrain is interesting enough from ground level, but viewing it from above would be fascinating, the difference between looking at flowers individually or seeing an entire garden.

I had never considered a hot-air balloon ride before this vacation to Turkey in May; if I had thought about it, I probably would have rejected it as too costly, too early and (gulp) too scary. But the guide on the bus from Kapadokya Balloons, the company arranging our adventure, reassured me: The pilots were skilled; the weather would be pleasant; credit cards would be accepted.

The eastern sky was seamless dark blue as our shuttle bus rumbled along the otherwise empty brick streets of Urgup.

I could make out a flag fluttering on its pole, and as we left the city proper, I also could see vague shapes in the scenery: faces, beasts, spectral houses. Later, the daylight would reveal the strange shapes to be mounds of tufa, some of them carved into homes.

Someone aboard the bus mentioned the Disney movie "Fantasia," and she was right; it did seem as though our ride should be accompanied by music by Mussorgsky.

We stopped at a small garage-like office, where we checked in and paid. We were offered tea or Nescafé. (How is it, in a country whose name is synonymous with coffee brewed so thick that it almost requires a knife and fork that a mark of hospitality is to serve instant?)

Second thoughts

THE launch site was filled with what sounded like lawn mowers, which were actually big fans pumping air into the openings of flaccid balloons extended on the ground. Ours was a big red one bearing the Coca-Cola logo. Our group of 19 would fill its basket, which meant we would have to rotate in and out of the "window seats."

I had misgivings. Although not a complete acrophobe, I'm usually the guy clinging to the elevator door on skyscraper observation decks.

"Boof!"

My foreboding was interrupted by a blast of yellow-blue flame as the crews began to heat the air inside the balloon. The basket, also still on its side, had four burners connected to four propane tanks, plus a fifth tank for ignition. That last one would be left behind when we took off.

"Boof!"

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