…There are a thousand ways of experiencing travel, of sightseeing, visiting cities, taking in landscapes, but nothing compares with enjoying the world from a bird’s eye view. A true adventure in which we know where we are starting from, Antequera, but not where we will end up.

Contrary to popular belief, flying in a balloon is very safe, and you experience no movement at all inside the basket. It is the most ancient method used by man to take to the skies, and there have been no developments whatsoever in the basic elements which make up a hot air balloon: a carrying basket made of wicker attached by cables to an inflatable ‘sail’ (the balloon), and burners to heat up the air, allowing you to ascend and descend and so ‘cruise’ along the currents of air. When we ask Santiago Valle, a balloon pilot with more than 800 hours’ flying time behind him, where we are heading, he smiles and says quite calmly: “Wherever the wind carries us...” Because the truth of the matter is that on a balloon flight you know where you are starting from, but not where you will land, since the balloon picks up air currents and travels along with the wind, the only option being to go up or down to catch another current of air and travel in a different direction. Santi is in constant radio contact with a colleague on the ground who follows us with the pickup vehicle. On board, the technology is more advanced than the first manned balloon flight in 1783: we have a GPS system, a compass, a speedometer and an altimeter. Everything is under control and the weather forecast is very good, otherwise we would not be flying, as Santi assures us: “We have a phrase in the world of ballooning which says it all: it’s better to be on the ground wishing you were in the air than to be in the air wishing you were on the ground”.

This time, we fly over the Llanura de Antequera, a broad, 50-kilometre valley, and can make out the symmetrical fields of olive trees blending into the precise lines of a speckled horizon, the expanses of deep green wheat fields and the furrows of a tractor contrasting with the ochre tones of the fallow land. We leave behind us, atop its rocky crest, the monumental town of Antequera, and to one side the famous outcrop of La Peña de los Enamorados. To the west Fuente de Piedra and its natural lagoon, the temporary haunt of pink flamingos, to the east, the village of Alameda, site of the tomb of Spain’s most famous bandit, José Pelagio Hinojosa, alias José María El Tempranillo. “We’re at an altitude of 100 m now,” Santi tells us, but in truth we haven’t noticed a thing.

There is no wind, there is no movement... all you hear occasionally are the burners, carrying us speedily up to the highways of the sky. “We’re moving along at 20 km/h,” our skilled captain informs us, but still we can’t feel a thing. Well, something, yes: an absolute, almost mystical, serenity, which grows as we climb higher and higher. The balloon, the ‘sail’ as those in the know call it, traces a yellow spiral above our heads, and we reach cruising altitude and speed, some 350 m above the ground and a horizontal velocity of between 20 and 25 km/h. A propane balloon can achieve an altitude of more than 10,000 m, but at such a stratospheric height we would need special protective clothing and oxygen masks to prevent us from fainting. Such extremes can be reached in competitions, in which Glovento Sur, the company taking us on this trip, has been involved, in circuits such as the King’s Cup, the Spanish Championship and the European Ballooning Championship.

Going for a dip

Once we have reached the limit set for our flight, our pilot stops feeding any more hot air into the sail. We begin our descent. The balloon loses pressure, and it is then that we notice a slight breeze, when we cross through the air currents below us as we descend. Santi turns the burners back on, and the balloon regains its semicircular form. “And now we’re going for a dip,” he announces, which means dropping down to the level of the treetops As we get ready for the imaginary plunge, a skilled hand on the gas brings us closer and closer to those olive trees which we had seemed to us from on high like tiny shrubs. The hares run off in panic at the sound of the burners and the presence of the balloon itself. Soon we can feel the wicker brushing against the branches laden with their ‘green gold’, and then we descend even further, flying just a a few inches above the ground, sweeping over a few wild shrubs. Suddenly, we begin to climb, but unfortunately our adventure is nearing its end. Santi speaks to his colleague on the ground, informing him of our current position and our estimated point of landing. “We will be landing near Alameda, between an olive grove and a field”. A wobble in our makeshift cabin tells us that we have come to the end of an experience which has, without a doubt, been unforgettable.