Friday, April 8, 2016

Desert Hot Air I actually enjoyed

A hot air balloon ride over the desert has been on our bucket list for a while and we finally booked the trip. 4am wake up call so that we could take off at sunrise, but as you'll see from the photos, it was worth it (and we had an afternoon nap to make up for the early departure).

 Filling up the balloon around 5:30am.

 There were 3 balloons in the group and we were with Captain Peter, who still carried  part of his army sergeant days with him.

 I love this shot - happened to catch both of them firing at the same time.

 Can you see what's spelled on the lake? We're flying here over the Sheikh's desert oasis and he built these little islands to spell Dubai just for the balloons and sky divers. I guess when you have more money than you know what to do with . . .


 It was a perfect morning - the skies have been really clear the last few days due to some rain the week before. We were lucky to have such a clear view.

 No harm done, but from the reaction from Captain Peter, I don't think this is supposed to happen when you have this much sky around you. :)

 Most of the flight was over the Dubai Nature reserve so we saw gazelles and oryx. Really cool, but hard to get a good photo of them.


Once the captain fired the flames of the balloons, the oryx took off.
 
The landing was a bit bumpy, but fun. The basket actually tips over on its side during the landing and then we crawl out - not what we expected. This is one of the other balloons as it started the tip.

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