About 25 years ago, I was given a lavishly illustrated coffee table book called The World’s Greatest Celebrations. It was loaded with glossy full page photographs of events including the running of the bulls in Pamplona, carnavale in Rio de Janeiro, the Coney Island mermaid parade, and that odd annual festival in some little Italian town where everyone bombards each other with overripe tomatoes for the entire day.
Among all the extravaganzas featured in those pages, two wormed their way into my imagination for the long haul: The first is Holi, the Indian springtime festival of colors, in which celebrants smear each other with multi-colored powders and spray each other with bright hued dyes shot from water guns and misting bottles. By the end of the day, whole villages look like explosions at the Crayola factory and, I imagine, Indian manufacturers of soaps and shampoos rub their hands together and snicker in satisfied glee at this most profitable of holy days.
The second celebration that I’ve regularly thought about since discovering it in that encyclopedia of public parties is the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta. Last Saturday, after a quarter century of occasional daydreams and fantasies about New Mexico’s hot air hootenanny, I actually attended the fiesta.
Who knew that when dreams come true, they come complete with two hour traffic jams at 4:30 a.m.? Who knew that there are hundreds of humans who, after pulling themselves out of bed in the middle of the night, sitting in that traffic jam and walking 30 minutes from a distant parking lot to the fiesta field, are then perfectly happy to stand in line for another chilly pre-dawn half hour to buy a greasy paper sack of Tom Thumb miniature donuts?
And who knew, that, despite all that hassle factor, I would still end up thoroughly delighted?
It took less than five minutes walking through the launch field’s inflatable forest for a gigantic involuntary smile to spread across my face. Everywhere I turned, the balloons’ vibrant colors tickled my eyes. Had Holi been the dream that came true rather than Balloon Fiesta, those colors would have resulted in a ridiculous laundry day, but here, they provided a visual feast without damaging any fine washables.
Then, there was the fire.
Beforehand, I hadn’t really thought much about how all that hot air got hot; I was like a silly kid, just feeling cheerful about seeing of hundreds of pretty, bouncy balloons. But, dude, let me tell you, they were blowing those balloons up with wicked, hissing military grade flame throwers that spewed six foot jets of fire, which made me feel like a giddy pyromaniac demon child at some glorious hybrid of a carnival, a Kiss concert and the gates of Hell.
One of my favorite storybooks when I was actually a child, rather than an adult feeling childish, was the story ofBabar and Celeste by Laurent de Brunhof. Babs and C were the king and queen of the elephants and after their royal wedding, they headed off for their honeymoon in a bright yellow hot air balloon. The fiesta was like 500 royal elephant weddings all at once, with the suspenseful added possibility that everything might accidentally combust, turning the launch field into a sprawling feast of pachyderm barbecue. Do you think trunk meat is best smothered in green or red chile?
I was surprised that none of the balloons themselves were shaped like elephants, given the beloved story of Dumbo. On the other hand, the pig-shaped one made sense (“When pigs fly…”) and I suppose the cow did too, if you’ve ever seen the move Twister. And the family of three penguin balloons was super cute, never mind that penguins are especially famous for being flightless birds.
Then again, those tuxedoed tweeters turned out to be the most appropriate form of balloon for last Saturday morning. Because after that 4am wake-up call, epic traffic and parking lot hike, all 585 balloons remained flightless, as wind conditions led to the Mass Ascenscion being cancelled for the day. Dream come true, meet aeronautic reality.
It would have been a real thrill to watch all those airships rise into the bright blue Albuquerque sky, but I’d be lying if I told you that I didn’t have a great time anyway. If a party balloon is a child’s toy, a hot air balloon is, well, an adult toy. And who doesn’t love a colorful selection of over 500 adult toys?
Up, up and away!
