In the morning of Monday, November 21st, thousands of people arrived at the Metropolitan Park in order to enjoy the last day of the León International Balloon Festival (FIG).
Even though the weather was a bit colder, the visitors did not stop their walk towards the area, where the hot-air balloons take off and to be able to appreciate the spectacle.
Óscar Abraham Rocha Moreno, FIG’s President, said: “During the first three days, the number of attendees was 450 thousand. However, we don’t have the total amount of visitors, but we will publish the figures in the next few days”.
Many trucks carrying those big baskets passed through the crowd, firing flames like dragons, so people could feel some heat, at least for a few seconds.
Several different languages could be heard, Spanish, English, French, German, Chinese and Japanese, among others.
While the sun was rising, thousands of people stared at the enormous hot-air balloons while they were being inflated, and not more than thirty minutes after that, the balloons were flying across the skies of León.
Some people who camped in the park could be seen wrapped in blankets to protect theselves against the strong and cold wind.
People were counting “One, two, three, four, five” … and then they went like “ten, twenty, thirty”… as dozens of this floating globes rose slowly into the air and turned that beautiful morning into a memorable moment for the thousands of attendees.
People were taking the most incredible “selfies” with more than 200 balloons in the background, while others were standing in line to buy a cup of coffee, tea or hot chocolate; and some of them remained asleep laying in their sleeping bags in the middle of the crowd.
The show lasted about an hour, different commercial brands adorned the balloons, but SpongeBob, Darth Vader or Yoda were the most attractive for the hundreds of visitors that looked at them in awe.
As time went by, some of the hot-air balloons started to descend and landed in the neighborhoods surrounding the park, while others were still in the air.
One of the biggest surprises of the festival came when ten pilots decided not to fly, but to offer the attendees the chance to live the experience of a short flight. They invited all visitors to elevate with them a little over 10 meters (30 feet) off the ground for a minute or two, and then they would descend to change passengers.
Little by little, pilots, balloons and attendants began to leave the park after four unforgetable days.
Source: http://www.am.com.mx/