I had booked this vacation and the balloon ride way back in September of last year. When I made the reservation I was warned about the possibility of the ride not happening at all. I had called a few days before I left on my vacation to find out if the ride was still happening and was told that the balloon pilot was away. I was very disappointed and had resigned myself to enjoying myself with other activities.
We arrived in Pagosa Springs on Sunday April 5th and checked into our condo. As usual I received a ton of brochures on all the different activities that were available for us during our stay. As I was going through the different activities I noticed a small announcement about the 'Hot Air Balloon Ride' on Tuesday the 7th. I literally shrieked with joy and called the activities desk to make my reservation before I was told there was no more room for us. You see the regular pilot had arranged it so that his friend would pilot the balloon in his absence. It was happening on one day only and boy am I glad I saw the announcement!!
We met at the crack of dawn in front of the activity center. We were eight of us in total including the pilot. We participated in the whole thing starting from attaching the balloon to the basket to inflating it. We used two huge fans to blow air into the envelope of the balloon and two propane burners attached to the basket heated the air.
Soon we were all aboard the balloon and lifted off above the resort. It was 7:30 am and everything was quiet and peaceful. We just drifted away with the wind. The pilot occasionally fired the propane burner to keep the air heated, but otherwise we were at mother nature's mercy. Mountains and lakes and ranches look fine when seen from the ground but they take on a completely different look when seen from the air.
After enjoying a serene and blissful flight over a beautiful landscape it was time to come back to earth. The pilot picked a large field to land and steered the balloon towards it. As he stopped heating the air the balloon slowly drifted towards the ground and softly landed on the field.
The chase crew had followed us to the land site, obtained permission from the homeowner to retrieve the balloon and were waiting for us with the van to take us back to the launch site. We helped with deflating and folding the balloon and stowing it away. When we reached the launch site a sumptuous breakfast of muffins, juice and champagne greeted us .
Sreyas and I had our fill of muffins and headed back to our condo to plan our next adventure - hiking along the Piedra river in the San Juan National Forest!
8 comments:
That was 'disproportionate' once again , conceivable than we mortals do on the earth.
A safari in ' ether ' thru dirigibles and ' Zepplins '. Quite enchanting no doubt !
However , the one in Africa arranged at the NGORONGORO forests by the Kenyan officials. Its a three hour balloon flight [ 3000 dollars per ride ] over the hungry lion packs looking at you, for the yummy morsels to descend down, over crocodiles with gaping mouths for 'Manna' to fall from the balloon straight into the mouth.
The balloon riders heave a sigh of relief after reaching their destination.
A cool three hours of intimidating Jaws, canines, a lip smacking ' King of the Forest ', wild bisons with ' diamond cut ' horns to give that extra penetration when the visitor lands on them !
Nice post, Seetha. Looks like you have a predilection to get airborne at the drop of a hat!
Naresh, how much does 3000 Kenyan Dollars translate to---is it more than 100 rupees?
Welcome Back - Ms Hawa Hawai!
Seetha...you shine out in almost all your performances.... And this time toh you've really come out in 'flying colours'...! GREAT!~ I have just seen a hot air balloon from outside. Never flown in it...:-}
Okay, I don't want to scare you but there was a very unfortunate incident with a student a few days back in Bangalore- his harness came off while he was Bungee jumping...:-{ I wish I could say 'it happens only in India but there are stray cases of it everywhere and an accident is merely that- an accident. Anyway, I'm glad you had a safe landing..:-}
Lovely pix and writeup Seeta. Why not go for hang-gliding and para-sailing and then the next frontier will be Space walking!!
Wow! What next? Down the gorge in Grand Canyon?
Thanks guys. What can I say, I am an outdoor adventure junkie. I have done bungee jumping too but unfortunately have no pics of it. My next goal is to hike the Inca Trail to Machu Pichu, Peru and yes also hike down to the Colorado river at the Grand Canyon. I have a long list of 'want to do' things, but not sure how many of those things I will be able to accomplish!!
Nargis, I suppose there is always that risk no matter what we do, even something as mundane as taking a shower. Yesterday I got the sad news that one of my fellow graduate students (we did our MS together) died after slipping and falling in his shower. He was just a few months older than me.
Adventure junkie... where next??
Post a Comment