We started early in the morning. Dark and cold, the sun still a couple of hours away. Apparently that’s the perfect time for a balloon ride in Morocco. I was cold and irritable. But as the ride wore on, and the van drove us out of Marrakech, towards the Atlas Mountains, my mood improved.
After about an hour we found ourselves at a small Berber village. A collection of mud dwellings built around a tall white granary. Donkeys and sheep brayed and grazed and furtive looking dogs ran down alleys.
I cast quite a shadow as the Moroccan sun peaked over the horizon.
The gas was turned on and a giant blue and yellow balloon began to take shape.
Not all of us were eager to get inside the wicker basket and float up into the air. Some of our group were dragged kicking and screaming to do something they had no interest in for no other reason than they didn’t want us to die without them.
Up and away we went, two giant orbs into the Moroccan dawn.
The views were spectacular. The village got smaller and smaller until the sheep looked like specks of white rice on a field of brown and green. And it was silent, save for the occasional burst of gas.
The balloon got higher and higher and, even though I’m not normally afraid of heights, I found myself holding my breath repeatedly. Like that would help. You can’t keep a balloon in the air by not breathing. Others took more concrete measures.
This is called the Wicker Death Grip
As we hovered around the Atlas mountains, we eventually made our way to another Berber village. As we descended, the village animals sounded the alarm. The donkeys ran back and forth in their mud corrals. The sheep and goats and horses and cows looked up in alarm. The dogs went bonkers. Literally out of their heads, running around frantically, barking up a storm. We quite literally scared the shit out of several animals. The villagers, having no choice but to investigate what sounded like the end of the world, came outside and looked up at the massive round shadow cast by the hovering orb above.
The ground came up to meet us, and, as is often the case with a hot air balloon, our landing was a bit of a mess. The basket hit the ground, bounced, then flipped on its side and dragged for awhile before coming to a final rest.
After landing, we stopped in a villagers home for some well-deserved mint tea.
If you want to learn more, click here.
If you want to see our balloon terrify a village, watch the video below. It’s rated PG-13 though, as someone, possibly me, uses a no-no word.
