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Our balloons
For the 1st 10 years we have flown Head Balloon AX9 118, 118,500 cubic ft twin balloons named Gloria and Ana.
For the 2008 season we are flying our brand new Fire Fly balloons 12b 280,000 cubic ft balloon.
Our balloons fly with Peruvian aircraft registrations numbers OB-
Globos de los Andes balloons have always had the motif of the Chakana on our balloons. Ana and Gloria have flow all over Peru in the last 10 years. Our new balloon Veronica we have made the Chakana design more notable using royal blue and navy blue, Fire Fly Balloons did an outstanding job making us a truly majestic balloon.
The Chakana symbol has been used in the Andes mythology as a sacred symbol.
the chakana represents the Southern Cross constellation, the most important stars in the Incan cosmological system. This constellation was seen as holding great significance, since it could be used to show the cardinal points of the compass (with the most distant star pointing south when in the sky), as well as the lines joining the four stars being of lengths equal to the side of a square and the diagonal bisecting it (one, and the square root of two).
Another significant meaning of the chakana is the three steps on each diagonal. These represent the three worlds in Inca cosmology:
Hanan Pacha, the over world (or celestial world) where the Gods dwelled and the spirits of the deceased were carried;
Kay Pacha, this world; and
Uqhu Pacha, the underworld of the dead and unborn.
These three steps could also be used to represent the tripartite agricultural system of work used to divide the harvest between village, imperial and temple.
It all started back in May of 1995.
I had left my job in Miami airport, and traveled to visit my old collage room mate in Lima Peru. I had no idea what a great adventure my life would turn into.
The idea to start the first hot air ballooning company in Peru, came to me at the Café Haite in Miraflores at 2am having coffee with a good friend before going to airport to fly back to Miami. The idea came from a documentary I had seen on Nasca, where a smoke balloon had been used to show that the ancient Nasca people could have used a balloon to see the Nasca Lines. There were no balloons in Peru operating with tourists, sounded like a great adventure, I was hooked. Back in Miami I took a ride on a hot air balloon to check it out, in the first minutes of flight I knew it would work, thus plunging head first to the vast un-known of south America.
I visited a small balloon mfg in north Georgia and placed an order for 2, 6 passenger hot air balloon. Then I began flight training to get my FAA commercial hot air balloon pilots license. I made many trips back and fourth to Lima while flight training in ft Lauderdale. In sept of 1996 I moved to live permanently in Lima setting up the company, learning to live in a different culture speak a different language and do business in a different way. The 2 balloons arrive in lima on jan 19th of 1997, were inscribed as Peruvian aircraft by June, the first flight in Peru was from Pachacamac to Cineguilla with a Peruvian aeronautical inspector.
Then we solicited the operating permission, first one ever in Peru, the inspectors did not know where to put us. Ttogether we wrote the new regulations for hot air balloons. In December of 1997 we packed up and shipped everything to Cusco and a rented house that would be our base in Urubamba. The first flight was on Jan 1 1998 over the fields of Maras. We did over 40 training flights finding the best and most safe places and times to fly. Our first paying passengers were a film team from lima, they filmed a report for a weekend TV magazine, soon afterwards we were flying tourists on a semi regular basis.
In 1999, we were asked to fly the ruins of Pisac with a team of lima photographers. It went well and they hatched an idea to go all over Peru and film ruins from above in the balloon. We flew Machu Picchu for 3 days then started traveling in expedition style with my crew and balloon all over Peru. Flying over more than 40 of the most popularly known ancient ruin sites of Peru, it was like living inside a national geographic documentary. We made lots of headlines and had a great adventure making historic flights on a daily basis. 2002 to the end of 2006, Back in Cusco we were flying tourist flights more frequently over Maras, and traveling to cool places in Peru with different documentary film teams about once a year. We had many interesting people fly in our balloon, from rock stars and play boy bunnies to orphan children.
Throughout the years Globos de los Andes has always taken part in many charity events mostly helping local children.
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