Intrepid Larry, lazy Carol

The day started with brave Larry wakening at 4:15 AM before the morning call to prayer, boarding the bus to a field of inflating balloons, hot burners filling the bags with glow.  After an awkward scramble into the basket, the balloon soars in the early morning over surreal landscapes of rock formations and hundreds of, balloons.  The pilot brings us down through a valley and up again.   We land with a gruadual descent until ropes are grabbed by the landing crew and the basket holding 20 people comes to rest on the back of the truck.  Victory, celebration, champagne!  We congratulate ourselves.  There are hundreds of balloons with twenty to thirty people in them every day.  But it is spectacular.  Return to the hotel for breakfast.

After more snoozing, and searching for Tylenol for Carol, begging for Tylenol, we drive to what is reported to be a homestyle meal, but very similar to foods we've been eating all week followed by a brief and awkward shopping experience.

Another silent bus ride (no chatter) we arrive at the underground city, a place recently discovered, many stories of passageways and tunnels, more like an anthill, an ant farm or rabbit warren, carved who knows how, inhabited for how long nobody knows.  Why here and not other places?  Because the sone is not so hard and easy to remove?  That's all.

(above dictated by Larry)

I spent the day in bed reading on my ipad, finishing other posts and sleeping, trying to ward off a cold, which I probably caught in Amsterdam, from the cold afflicted on that trip.