History of globos de los Andes
-
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 are 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, I knew it would work, thus
plunging head first to the vas 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 and 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
Cinagia with a Peruvian aeronautical
inspector.
-
Then we solicited the
operating permission, first in Peru,
the inspectors did not know where to
put us. We ended up writing in the
new regulations for hot air balloons
together. 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.
