Hot Air Ballooning – Valley of the Kings

This morning we got up at 4am and we were out the door at 4:30am with box breakfasts in hand. We took a bus to a boat, crossed the river and boarded another bus. The balloons were launching very close to the Valley of the Kings. When we arrived, there were 4 balloons getting setup to take flight. Ours had a basket with 8 sections in it so I think it could hold 24 people, but I don’t think we had that many…maybe 18-20. We quickly got in the basket and‎ waited while they continued to heat the air with the massive burners. I was busy taking photos of the other balloons near us lifting off and didn’t notice that we had left the ground ourselves!

It’s very peaceful floating over the farm land and nearby ruins and monuments. The journey lasted just over an hour. Our pilot gently set us down in a farmers field a few kilometers away from where we took off. His crew followed us and were there when we touched down to keep the basket stable and then eventually deflate the balloon. What a great way to start the day.

Our pilot turned out to be a little annoying and enjoyed repeating over and over that he was a commercial airline pilot.  He also got into a disagreement with some Turkish tourist on board our balloon.  On the bus ride back to meet up with our regular group, the pilot was with us in the van.  He again mentioned that he was a trained commercial airline pilot and had his license in the UK and US.  He also mentioned that the balloon ride we just took was cleared for 1500 ft in altitude but he decided that he would take us to over 3000 ft.  He says he knows the air traffic controller and that there were no other aircraft in our flight path that morning.  He also said that the turned off our aircraft beacon so air traffic control didn’t know how high we were.  With no beacon, other planes would not know where we are either.  This was extremely dangerous and reckless and things could have easily ended quite differently.