Now I know you have seen some of my pictures of the hot air balloons, but I have a story to tell. Our balloon is the solid red one in the photo above. Notice it is flanked by a yellow and green striped balloon and a blue one. Soon our basket will right itself like you see with the yellow and green one right now. It is just in the process of coming up from a lying down position. People are already in the yellow and orange basket and will be taking off momentarily.
When our basket righted itself, we were helped inside. These baskets are large enough to hold about 16 people or more. Then our balloon failed. It was collapsing onto itself so the hot air could no longer get inside to fill out the balloon. (I am thinking that it was because of the flanking balloons pushing us off centre of the hot air) The blue one at this point had grown larger and was pushing ours aside. We had to get into the landing position, which was squatted down and lying on our backs inside the basket. We waited for the other two balloons to lift off before we could start again. So if you are looking at the photo above and you notice everyone is standing sideways. Those are the people on the ground. We are the ones lying sideways.
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| Because we were right under the balloon, I was able to get this photo |
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| And this one |
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| A very foggy overcast morning. The smoke indicates the sugar cane fields being burned off after the harvest. |
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A "sugar kiss". We got so low at one point, we could pick the leaves of the sugar cane.
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| Irrigated fields of the Nile with desert beyond. |
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| We got so high my ears popped. |
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| Coming down over the town |
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Top floors held livestock and chickens. Look at all those satellite dishes.
I would guess that this was probably the best experience of my trip. It really is hard to pick just one thing (I really enjoyed my camel ride), but we have so many pictures taken of the balloons and from the balloons, I have to guess that this is the highlight. This, I would do again.
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Where were you when you took this ride, again?
ReplyDeleteI don't think that I would ever get in a hot air balloon (height, fire, no no no!) but I enjoyed riding with you! You are very adventurous, my Canadian friend :)
That picture of the irrigated fields with the desert just next to them is amazing because of the contrast between the two landscapes. Even though we mostly have sand here in Florida (our topsoil is less than half an inch in my backyard), we have weeds and other vegetation!
Thanks for explaining about the livestock and the chickens on the roofs. I had heard about it but forgotten. Everybody has a satellite dish though, no matter how humble their abode is. It's the same here too. In my town, the poorest neighborhoods most houses still have a satellite dish.
I'm glad you enjoyed your adventure... and that you came back in one piece!
I loved my adventure. Our operator was actually very good. The landing was very smooth, and the crew had followed us to our exact location, like they have done it hundreds of times before. I would do it again in a heartbeat.
ReplyDeleteWow Susan, how exciting. I would love to go in a hot air balloon (ha, something we differ on Nathalie lol).
ReplyDeleteThe views are amazing. How long was you up for? I can't believe you managed to pick some sugar cane whilst flying.
I love the photo of the fire. Xxx
I believe we were up there about an hour....too short in any case. You are quite a bit different from Nathalie. She didn't like the height or the fire. It was so much fun. (squeal)
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