Okay, well, today was quite the day!

I did so much that it literally felt like 2 days.

I mean, by 8:30, I had already put a full day in and taken a whopping 100 photos and videos.

So, yeah, it was quite the day!

And it was enough for me to break today’s blog into two parts – Balloons and Tombs.

Let’s start with part one, shall we?

Up at 4am

When I booked the sunrise hot air balloon ride yesterday, the company messaged me asking what time slot I wanted.

There are two pickup time slots, one at 4am and one at 6:10am, each with their own pros and cons.

If you go for the 4am pickup you have to wake up earlier and wait in the dark longer but you have the opportunity to see the sun come up into the sky at 6:30.

The later time slot allows you to wake up later but you lift off only after the sun has risen.

It seemed like a no-brainer to go for the earlier time that, despite its’ drawbacks, would let me watch the sunrise from the air.

When I asked the man about it, he mentioned that the earlier start time is more suspectable to cancellation due to the early morning weather.

Considering the rides had been cancelled entirely the last 3 days, I opted for the later time slot.

I just wanted to make sure I was in a balloon today.

The comical part of all that back and forth with the decision was that later on in the day the company messaged me that the new pickup time was 5am.

I’d be seeing the sunrise from the air after all.

So, I set my alarm for 4am this morning and I was in a van roaming around the East Bank picking up people soon after.

For only the 3rd time this trip, I was bundled up in my winter jacket.   I also had my gloves, touque, and scarf tucked away in my backpack just in case.

While it was a somewhat mild 9C out, I was getting ready for the temperature drop when we went climbing into the air.

Ready for lift off…

There are dozens of companies that offer these hot air balloon rides and they all lift off from the same area in the West Bank.

In fact, there are 55 balloons that depart from the area in each time slot.

With each balloon carrying at least 20 people, well, let’s just say that there are hundreds of people being transported into the lift off area.

After picking up our contingent of people, our minivan drove over the bridge to the West Bank.

We parked there at 5:45 and waited in the van for 20 minutes as we watched a literal parade of minivan after minivan enter the grounds.

It actually was quite a site as you saw these vans race by hundreds of ground grow preparing all the different balloons behind them.

Finally we were let out of the van at just after 6am and were pooled into groups of 20 and then, from there, into groups of 5.

Nobody used our actual names to move us around, instead they referred to us by our hotel name so I was known as Venus all morning.

Before we got on the balloon we were given a quick safety talk from our pilot and then all 20 of us held hands in a circle and did a little dance around to get us all charged up.

It felt like I was in grade school again.

Up, up, and away

At 6:35, just as the sun had started to rise, we were finally lifting off into the sky.

The reason we were split into four groups of 5 was that each basket had four corners and the split was to balance out the distribution of people.

As we lifted off into the air using multiple spurts of gas powered flames from the center of the basket, it quickly became apparent that there’d be no need for the touque and gloves.

If anything, it felt like my hair (what little of it there is up there) was getting singed.

The pilot told us about the different sites we were flying over and then, once we had reached our final altitude of 1300 feet, he asked us if we had any questions.

Well, me being the eagle eyed blog writer, wanted to know some stuff.

So, here ya go…

The balloon we were in was made in England in 2020 at a cost of about $160,000usd.

Each balloon is meant to only be used for 1000 hours before it’s supposed to be replaced and it takes a crew of a dozen people to get everything setup and us into the air.

After being up in the air for 45 minutes, we landed in a random spot 2.5km away.

Back to earth

As we drifted down towards the ground, the ground crew slowly followed us in their trucks to meet us to where we’d eventually land.

When we got to the ground, it actually felt like we were being taxied to our gate as the guys were tugging our basket with a rope to a better area to unload us and take everything apart.

Yup, they had to unhook the basket, deflate the balloon, fold it back up, put all the stuff on trucks, and drive back to the takeoff area to reset it all for the 2nd time slot.

Wow, that’s alot of work!

At 7:30 we were back on a van heading back to our hotels.

This time around we went to the docks by the river and took a motorboat across and then we were transported to another van to get us back to our hotels.

And there I was, back at my hostel at 8:15.

It wasn’t even 8:30 yet and I had had a full day already!

I had a huge smile on my face, my camera was full of amazing pictures and videos, and my phone charge was already down to 65%.

It was a great morning and the day had just begun…

Click here to read about part two of the day.