Margaret Wardis thrilled by a balloon ride over Cappadocia, in Turkey.
The silence is what I notice first. That, and a surprising feeling of weightlessness, as we leave the earth behind. After all the preparation there is barely a sound as we rise above the ground, just the whoosh of the valve that allows us to drift up.
For once the tourists are quiet, each in awe of the lunar landscape unfolding below the basket of our balloon, high above Cappadocia, in Turkey. Magical.
There are little gasps as we exclaim to each other how wonderful it is. And then the digital cameras come out, mine included, as our desire to capture experience sometimes overrides the experience itself. I had resolved to put mine away and just float, but the temptation proves too much.
I had set the alarm for 5.30am, but I needn't have worried. At 5.20am the first call to prayer echoed across the valley and into my cave room. An almost full moon lit the village as I was collected from my guesthouse. Jeeps took us to a launch site on a cliff near the town of Göreme, where the team unrolled the balloons and began to fill them.
Away to our right about 30 other ballooons drifted up and away. A couple of them disappeared into the folds of the Göreme valley, where volcanoes erupted thousands of years ago, covering the ground in ash. This hardened into a rock called tufa. It's white and porous, and erosion has formed it into fantastical shapes. Basalt has covered some of the tufa, forming so-called fairy chimneys.
Our Swedish pilot, Lars, whose partner, Kaili, is in charge of the balloon alongside us, has been flying here for 16 years. Every day, they say, is different.
The wind determines our direction, but the pilot determines our height. So, after a spell up high, to take in the landscape, Lars descends into an orchard, tipping the tops of trees. We are barely above the ground. Then we hover over the edge of tufa cliffs and drop into magical narrow valleys carved from rock. One group of rocks has been shaped into organ pipes by erosion.
We pass over tiny gardens and vineyards, drifting along as birds sing in the trees. Kaili calls it a nature walk in the sky.
From the air you can see how terrace farming carefully made use of land and water. Many of the terraces were abandoned with the move to mechanised agriculture. At one point we see pipes rising from the ground. Lars explains that they are aeration pipes for caves where citrus fruit is stored after harvest, until the price goes up. Down in a village, children on their way to school wave with excitement, and dogs bark.
A few minutes later we cross a road, Kaili's balloon seemingly only metres above a passing car.
Lars brings us up 1,750m (5,800ft) above sea level, where we float above the clouds. As the Anatolian plateau is already 1,000m (3,400ft) high, we are only 450m (1,500ft) above ground, but it's chilly up here, and the fleeces and gloves come out.
We had practised for a "giggly landing", in case our basket overturned, but Lars lands with precision on a trailer in a farmer's field. The ground crew has been in radio contact all along, and the co-ordination is impressive as we touch down. Kaili's basket bumps a little bit along the ground but stays upright.
There are bubbles, certificates and photographs to mark our first flight - and many promises to do it again. As Leonardo da Vinci wrote: "When once you have tasted flight you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been and there you will always long to return."
Margaret Ward, who is foreign editor of RTÉ, took her balloon trip with Kapadokya Balloons (www.kayadokya balloons.com, 00-90-384-2712442), which charges €230 for a three-hour excursion, including about 90 minutes in the air