09.10.09 kulturnatib

Hot-air story

Hot-air balloons have never landed in nor taken off from Cebu City. I don't believe so. Yet, like everybody else who watches TV, movies, reads newspapers, magazines or books, I have had but a glimsing familiarity with these gracefully ponderous aerial giants.

Until my first visit here (Canada) in 2006, that is. When I learned that there was a local annual hot-air balloon festival and it took place during the time of my visit, I naturally and excitedly welcomed the chance to upgrade this familiarity to, perhaps, friendship.

To start off I learned these balloons' real names: Montgolfieres, from the Montgolfiere brothers, French siblings who pioneered this mode and method of flight when all there was to get by was ideas and drawings of Leonardo da Vinci.

That event came and went, as I did. Then, the closest I got to these balloons was half a kilometer away when a few of them got as far as getting fully inflated but not much more nor farther than that as the early morning winds strongly advised against their taking off.

Of course, before then, I had had a few sightings of them aloft from our apartment window. Taken all in all it seemed to be a fruitful enough introduction.

Last weekend, it was the Festival des Montgolfieres once more. I was back, so were they. But, I am no longer a visitor but a resident. And, no longer in an apartment but in a house not far from the base site of the festival and next door to a park.

It was the last day of the festival. On TV we saw them take off for the last time. We looked out the window and, indeed, there they were. They had taken to the clear, cloudless late summer sky; Clumps of blazing color against a brilliant blue.

We took to the street on our way to the park to get a better view. Especially for our daughter who, just learning to speak, does not yet make the fine distinction between the ball played with on the ground and the ball many times bigger that flies or floats in the air since in French they can both be called the same word; Ball.

Outside there were enough of them to have one go; there, there, there and there some more!

But then, look there! Hey, it's coming down! It's going to hit the houses! It's headed for the park! Mon Dieu, it's huge!

And you could hear the jets of flame roaring and hissing to heat up the air inside the balloon that gives it its better known english name and makes it fly. But this time and with this one it didn't seem to heat the air enough. Instead of flying it was headed down to what could only be a non-scheduled touchdown.

Non-scheduled it might have been but not entirely undesignated, as I learned later. Our park is a designated landing zone that lies in the periphery of the Gatineau Park, a bigger, more densely forested park where a landing is, at the very least, a messy and entangling proposition.

So, the Mongolfiere with the markings of Abitibi Bowater, a forest products company, paid us, our park, a visit, dropping in on the few kids who were playing basketball, soccer, simply running around or hanging out.

The bigger among them were hastily commandeered to help keep the balloon grounded since it still had enough hot air to lift it but not enough to clear the houses or the trees and it didn't have the traditional sandbag ballasts or weights while the pilot frantically called to his pursuit crew on his two way radio for assistance and eventual extraction.

Before the crew arrived, came the pleasantly surprised residents surrounding the park and their super excited children who wanted to meet this most unexpected visitor up close. They peppered the pilot with questions, who had a few of his own: Where are we? Which road is that?

A young boy, in particular asked: “How much to get on?” “Two hundred plus dollars,” the woman he asked answered who happened to be one of the, probably paying, passengers on the balloon. “That much for an hour?”, the boy persisted. “For a few minutes,” was the wry reply, as the balloon was finally wrestled to the ground by adults to whom the pilot gave more complicated instructions for this maneuver.

The balloon looked like an exhausted prehistoric bird slumped on the ground. But, still good looking enough for the rare photo op.

The pursuit crew finally arrived. They dismantled the whole gear which didn't look to be more complicated nor having more parts than an ordinary propane powered bicycle. The balloon itself, for sure as big or bigger than 20 by 20 meters when fully inflated was folded and stuffed into a bag just one meter cube.

As I started walking back to the house the pilot was handing out plastic cups of bubblies for a successful if not entirely completed flight and for sure for launching hot air stories that is certainly amazing and entirely true.