The Balloon Debacle. (P.3 of 3)

An hour before dawn, 15 of us (managers, journalists, and advertising) piled into a bus and headed down the mountain to the balloon-launch-sight. The sun was barely making its appearance once we arrived at three air balloons being inflated for our sky excursion. Once exiting the bus, a gust of wind blew against me from the west, signaling a message that flight might prove precarious. 'Was this a sign?' I thought.

When you really confront a hot air balloon, what strikes you at once is there sheer size. For example, check-out the image above, Now compare the actual balloon's size with the wicker basket below and its occupants. This is no exaggeration in the least. The sight of these balloons, in reality, is truly magnificent.

More than likely unconsciously, I was following the managing director around the launch area, or he was following me. But we ended up in the same balloon along with the editor. We were told that only 4 passengers per ride, including the pilot. So I was stuck with my bosses, that at the time didn't really matter one way or the other. Riding in this 18th-century contraption, as human beings, we were all equal. Like a pandemic, the balloon paid no favorites or followed man-made social constructs – we were all equal under the balloon.

The pilot, a thirty-something, blond, good looking Aussie bloke, looked up at the sky, shaking his head.

“If this wind keeps-up, mate, we'll have to call the whole thing off. The wind needs to be below a certain amount of knots before we can safely launch. We'll go ahead and fill the balloons to the maximum and see how we go from there.”

As if on some higher power universal cue, the wind dropped down to almost nothing right at the same time, the balloons were filled to capacity. Looking at the three of us, “Okay, lady and gents, climb aboard.”

The carrier basket had the same texture and capacity as your common lawn chair. It squeaked loudly as we climbed in. Above us was the firing-blower mechanism, which keeps the balloon full and determines how high or low the balloon's sky is maneuvered. The pilot will pull on the lever, creating a flame directed below the balloon, causing the craft to rise, and so on. If you have ever heard a flamethrower in a film, it sounds exactly the same.

Once we were all positioned inside the carrier, he pulled the lever, shooting flame and gas in the balloon, while the men below untied the anchors and we're truly away.

Our ascension into the sky was rapid, the space between us and the ground dividing so quickly that my stomach reached my throat. In a few minutes, my colleagues on the ground became tiny dots, and we were one with the clouds.

The MD looked over at Martin, and his face was deathly pale, and his hand gripped tightly to the ropes. Indeed, the man was “white-knuckling” the experience and refused to look down. On the surface, the newspaper's editor, Jenny, was barely hanging on, peering down at the ground, a huge smile on her face. In a rush to be a “team member,” I'd forgotten my fear of heights. The basket felt to be so flimsy, I thought, that a strong gust of wind would turn it sideways, pouring us, its occupants, into free fall. It was then and there, I decided to stop looking down and focus my attention on our handsome pilot, pulling the lever, with a worried expression.

Yes, the pilot was frowning and seemed on the verge of some kind of panic. He yelled out,

“The wind has picked up too much speed, and sorry, but I need to cut this trip short!”

“How are you going to do that?” I shouted.

“As slow and as easy as possible, mate.”

Without noticing it, we had descended hundreds of meters, and the ground appeared much too close for comfort. The pilot yelled out:

”See those telephone wires ahead? We have to fly above them, or we'll be in trouble, mate!”

Looking ahead, suddenly the wires were upon us, and he pulled the lever, forcing flame and gas into the balloon, causing us to rise, and barely missing our inevitable electrocution.

All at once, we are on the ground, dragging along at break-neck speed, dirt lashing against my face. After a few moments, we came to an abrupt stop. I crawled out of the wicker basket and standing up, I saw my colleagues do the same. Jenny had a slight laceration on her left cheek. Martin had that same fearful expression but looked to be uninjured. Our pilot crawled out too, appearing more pissed off than physically hurt.

Turning around, I saw a modern house, and through the front came a woman and her child, staring at us in disbelief. The four of us stared back at her when finally Martin said,

“I'm sorry to bother you, but we had a slight accident.”

I thought, Geez Martin, the understatement of the bloody century!

She didn't respond but continued to stare at us and our monstrous the deflating balloon that had just landed, like some alien craft, in her front yard.

This is no exaggeration, and we agreed upon this observation once back at the hotel: the mother had to be one of the most beautiful women we had ever seen. She was dressed in a male's tee-shirt, long flowing red hair and the face of a 19th-century pre-Raphaelite painting. For certain, at the time, the experience was surreal but etched in my memory to this day.

Suddenly a jeep appeared and picked us up, taking us back to the launch site. As it turned out, none of the other balloons had taken off due to the wind. Our pilot, in retrospect, was too keen, resulting in our near death experience.

That night at the hotel, decided to join the boy's in the bar and tell my side of the story with drunken enthusiasm. Later that night, I ended up stumbling back to the room, feeling like I had escaped death.

That year, I finished my Arts degree to enroll in a postgraduate course in education. I left the newspaper to focus on my next career move, teaching.

To present-day, I've never wished to fly in a hot air balloon, ever again.