10 things you should know about the Araku balloon festival

The Araku Balloon Festival will soon return for its second edition. Set in the picturesque valleys of Araku, the festival will be held from 18-20 January 2019. Here are 10 things that you should know about this unique festival.

#1 The inaugural edition of the Araku Balloon Festival was the first event of its kind for Andhra Pradesh and saw 13 countries participating.

#2 The pilots who attended the Araku Balloon Festival came from varied age groups.

#3 Height is the only parameter that can be controlled by a hot air balloon pilot. Wind direction thus plays a major role in the flight, and also makes this a worthy experience that should be on your bucket list of experiences to have.

#4 The three-day festival that took place from 14^th to 16^th November in 2017, saw morning flights and evening tethers and night glows. While the rain played spoilsport and the heavy cloud cover gave only a short ceiling for the height the balloon could go to, a lucky few could take the morning flights on 14th, 16th  & 17th November 2017.

#5 The night glows in the evening drew a huge crowd and much cheer, especially when the nitrogen powered flames for all the balloons came on, all at once.

#6 Many people also got to take rides during the evening night glows, names for which were chosen through a lucky draw.

#7 The paramotoring displays in the morning were exciting. Vedika Thapar, the first paramotoring woman pilot from India was part of the crew that came all the way from Jaipur.

#8 There were three specially shaped balloons that added colour to the festival. The bumble bee nicknamed ‘Bee’ travelled all the way from Belgium and had Luc as its pilot. The sea horse came from Brazil and is called Neptune. It had Luiz Paulo as the pilot. The Kiwi was from New Zealand.

#9 India participated with pilots Karimulla Syed and Udit Thapar.

#10 The second season of the Araku balloon festival, will hopefully throw open the options for city dwellers to take the balloon rides, and is something we all look forward to.