Balloon Ride

Up and about at 3 am because that is how early you need to be to ride in a balloon. Pickup was 3:45 and not much traffic then. We need to ride a boat to cross the river and while we are waiting on board and having coffee we meet another couple from Airdrie Alberta who become our balloon basket partners. The staging area for the balloons is large as there are 26 taking off this morning. They all carry around 14 passengers. The take off (if you can call it that) is near the Valley of the Kings. From the time the balloon is laying flat on the ground to inflated and all passengers aboard is about 20 minutes. That is about the same amount of time it would take to fire up a B777 for a trip to Toronto, but the balloon is much more dramatic. There is fans blowing, people shouting, great balls of fire churning, and a lot of running around. Liftoff is about 20 minutes before sunrise around 5:30. Balloon captain Amr provides a smooth ride along with interesting commentary on the area. We are airborne for 65 minutes and the touchdown is soft. Our ground support team get a lot of direction from Captain Amr once they grab on to our tether line. The group of 8 ground supporters have to slog through a cornfield so we can alight to a suitably dry piece of ground. More shouting and running around as they collapse the balloon and load the basket onto the back of a truck. Our van transport is waiting nearby and Dianne and I are off to join our other travel companions for the rest of the day.Read more