Almost a Bird

Mark Twain once said, "The air up there in the clouds is very pure and fine, bracing and delicious.  And, why shouldn't it be?  It is the same the angels breathe."  Similarly, Wilbur Wright once remarked on flying, "More than anything else, the sensation is one of perfect peace mingled with an excitement that strains every nerve to the utmost, if you can conceive of such a combination."

Haven't we all looked skyward some times in our lives and looked in wonderment at the flight of birds whether it is the effortless gliding of a group of pelicans above the ocean or perhaps a soaring eagle so high up it boggles our minds.  We have all wanted to take flight or to know what it feels like to be a bird gazing down at us.  Certainly, I am no different.  And, by flying here I am not including skydiving which, when you get right down to it, is merely an extended act of falling.  Nor do I refer to those who engage in parasailing when, after all, they are still tethered to the earth.  And, while I would like to include those individuals who engage in wingsuit flying -- you know, those intrepid souls who wear outfits that make them look oddly like flying squirrels -- who jump off cliffs and then try not to crash, most of us do not comfortably pursue that level of lunacy.

And, so, there we were: Jesse and Laura, Alex, and Lily and me arising in what seemed the middle of the night in Mexico City, all so that we could get to Teotihuacan, about an hour's drive northeast of the city.  There we would experience a sunrise flight of a hot air balloon that would take us above the Pyramid of the Sun, a pre-Aztec construction that dominates the surrounding landscape.  I won't say we were nervous; that would be misleading and overstated.  But, we were in a highly anticipatory mood, that's for certain.  In part, this emotion stemmed from the fact that we didn't know what to expect once we got airborne.  Would we be terrified?  Would we be ecstatic?  Could we remain calm?  Who knew?

As we walked out to our designated balloon, we could see the propane flames slashing the air inflating the many balloons around us.  They were hot those flames.  We could feel them.  We arrived at our balloon and learned that we would need to climb up into it and take our positions in the four corner quadrants of this large woven basket which, upon further inspection, seemed a bit delicate to be entrusted with the weight of eight passengers, propane gas tanks, and our pilot, Enrique.  Nevertheless, we stumbled our way over the edge of the basket and received our twelve second "safety briefing" from Enrique.  The sum and substance of this was to advise us to bend our knees upon re-entry.  Good to know.

And then, we left mother earth.  Rising so slowly, so gently that if you had your eyes closed you might be totally unaware you were now floating in the air.  But, how could you have your eyes closed when your brain is spilling over with excitement, anticipation, and, yes, a spoonful of fear?  The sun had not risen yet and so the only real light  was that projecting from the propane flames which seemed so close to my head my hair sometimes felt like it was about to burst into flames.  Enrique smiled and assured us the flames would not pose a threat to us.  When I asked Enrique what direction we were headed, he shrugged his shoulders and said the wind would take us wherever the wind wanted to take us. We would have no control over that.  Hmmm, really?  He made a stab at assuring us about this uncertainty by telling us he would try to land in an open field somewhere and avoid houses or other buildings or cactus fields.  Alrighty then!

And, up  we went.  At first, we were close enough to the ground to feel like we were a human Google Earth, focusing on buildings, trees, the headlights of moving cars.  But, then, we were too high for that.  Even the pyramids below seemed hopelessly insignificant now.  Then, the mountains in the distance took over.  And, then the clouds.  The air cooled.  At times, we were so surrounded by clouds you could see nothing else.  And, what a sensation that was.  I could say, I suppose, that we were experiencing the same view one might have gazing out of an airplane window.  But, what we saw and felt was so strikingly different.  We were not surrounded by metal or sitting in an upholstered seat.  We were floating outside in the air with nothing between us and the clouds but our ecstatic smiles.  So -- THIS is what birds see!

The sun rose and filtered through the clouds in an epic way.  There were nineteen other balloons aloft with us and each caught the sun's rays and brightened the already colorful patterns on each of them.  Seeing them all floating so easily out there made for an extraordinarily breathtaking wallpaper.  Photos were shot by all of us at a rate of about thirty per second, or so it seemed.  Enrique told me we were up  around 3,000 feet (or 10,000 feet above sea level).  It looked it.  We rose above the first cloud layer and then had the weird, but endearing, sight of nothing but the clouds beneath us, the sky above us, and our fellow balloonists all around us, seemingly miles apart.

When the clouds beneath us disappeared, the act of leaning a bit over the edge of the basket came into play.  It was here that you got the best sense of how fragile all of this seemed; how the only thing we had between us and the ground thousands of feet below us were this basket, hopefully enough propane to keep us aloft, and Enrique's steady hands at the controls.  Yes, it did give us that funny feeling you get in the pit of your stomach when facing some potential fate you want nothing to do with.  Giggling helped offset the fear that so badly wanted to take control.

After forty-five minutes or so, we floated slowly and gently back to earth.  When we got close, we hovered over a cactus field, the kind Enrique assured us would not be under our feet when we landed.  And, sure enough, we elevated a bit again and found a perfect landing space in an open field.  Within moments we were joined by a "ground crew" that would help us anchor the balloon and provide us with a ride back to our starting point.  As Lily and I got in to the truck's cab, what music was playing on the radio?  Why, "Safe and Sound," of course.  Really.

The ride back would enable us to sit back and think calmly about what we had just experienced.  Memories that will last a lifetime.  Twain and Wright knew what they were talking about.