Now I wouldn't call it off the books, but this balloon trip was certainly off the books. The idea was mentioned on our first day, during our first meeting with Khader and though he may have forgotten it, we didn't, applying the pressure steadily over the course of the trip. Until the day before we were due to drive back to Amman when Khader finally arranged a trip for us.
It was my first time. I've done the skydive, the plane rides, but this one eluded me, plus seeing the balloon swarms back in Luxor made me incredibly jealous. This one was an incredibly early start, pre sunrise, but alas there was no sunrise take off. In fact, the take off process was incredibly slow...
Now, I'm no hot air balloon expert. Far from it, but it seems to me that you dump the basket on the floor, use giant fans to blow lots of air into the balloon part, add some heat to the mix, stand it all up, jump in and cut the tethers to the ground.
The gigantic wicker basket itself was designed with our sections in each corner, ready to hold 3-4 persons depending on their combined weight. I was in a 3 person section so I guess...yeah. The final section was in the middle, an area just for the pilot to on/off the burners, and tell us about his life story in between the deafening burns. Lift off, was slow and very pleasant.
Goodbye tiny people
It wasn't a race, but we were losing.
Turns out the only control over the balloon is up or down, the wind does the rest and the view was just incredible.
Everyone was having an excellent time.
Smiles, not under duress
Saw some interesting sights...
Wadi Rum Train Station in the foreground and the Horse Riding Centre in the back.
The Al-Quwayrah Solar Substation in the top left corner, a 103 Mega Watt solar plant. Half of the panels are fixed and the other half are tracked to the angle of the sun. Pretty bad ass.
Jordanian State Police Station on the right, with the location station to the left
State Police Station
Wadi Rum Police Station
The Sinam Resort complete with glamping on the left side, a fortress in the top left corner and paintball field in the front left, complete with full size military tanks. Mixed reviews...
Beit Ali Lodge Camp complete with luxury pool, amphitheatre, prop plane, stables, orchard and solar panels. Also, mixed reviews...
Zeina Luxury Desert Lodge with some glamping spots.
As the trip came to an end, identified by our pilot shouting at us to get into our brace positions, I started getting flashbacks to our safety briefing before we even climbed into the baskets. We were told to sit down on the basket floor, arms stretched out to brace us and we werent allowed to pop up like meerkats until given the all clear...and not to freak out if the basket tipped and we were dragged across the ground.
Everybody survived, no injuries, but we were late to return to the group. It was a worthy bucket list, and unlike the skydiving, I'd like to do this one again.
