One of my weekends in Mexico City I decided to take a little trip a few hours away to visit Tequisquiapan, Queretaro, and San Miguel de Allende. More on the other cities later but for now we’re going to talk about the highlight: a hot air balloon ride in Tequisquiapan.
I had never been on a hot air balloon ride before but had always wanted to do one. Given that this was Mexico and it was off season, the price was just too good to pass up. My friends and I booked a package that included 1 night at a hotel, dinner, breakfast, and the balloon ride, all for less than $200. The hotel and food were nothing special but they were definitely pleasant enough and certainly adequate since we were really only there for the balloons. In fact, if I had to estimate, I would say about 98% of the guests were really only there for the balloons.
We drove to the hotel from Mexico City on Friday afternoon, explored the town of Tequisquiapan a bit, checked in, had dinner, and then tried to get to bed at a reasonable hour because we would be picked up for our hot air balloon ride before 7am.
In the morning we got up and joined the other travelers to take the van out to an open field where the sun was just starting to come up as they began to inflate the hot air balloons. After a fairly useless safety discussion (“You may not jump out of the basket,” etc.) we were split into groups of 8, loaded up into our balloon baskets, and took flight. The baskets were actually much sturdier than I expected so the flight wasn’t scary at all and was actually quite relaxing.
Once we landed, the guides allowed us to walk inside of the still semi-inflated balloon and take pictures. Then we loaded back into the vans and were delivered back to the hotel where we had a champagne toast (if you can call that stuff champagne), enjoyed breakfast, had the option of purchasing photos of the tour, and then packed up and headed on our way.
All in all, it was a very fun experience and it was extremely low-key so anyone of any age or activity comfort level should be able to enjoy.
