Wendy Update

OLA!!
Boy have we been busy.  If we are not ballooning, or eating we are trying to catch a quick nap.  We are in Los Andes, about an hour north of Santiago.  This is our third day here, it's a town of about 70,000.  This is our 4th hotel......getting good at packing. 

We have been in Los Andes for two nights now............tonight will be our last night.  Our interpreter is the tourism director for this City.  The balloons have flown 3 times now.  We've also done a few glows at the Park.  This morning there were hundreds of people at the park to see us at 7 am.  In these small towns (this one is 70,000)  there is very little crime or other police type issues. We can leave our equipment laying on the ground at the park and come back in an hour or two and nothing has been touched.  There was only one time we were watchful for ourselves  and that was in Valparaiso, when we were staying in Vina Del Mar.  We were in a shopping area and there were a lot of police, some with police dogs, and a  lot of security people at the stores.  One of the venders that I bought a souvenir from (didn't speak English) motioned to me that someone would be looking at my rings.  I turned my ring around so the diamonds were in my palm and she said NO.  She motioned with a knife my finger would be cut off to get the rings.  Well now, I respected that information right away.  I took my rings off and Danny put them in his pocket.  So, like I said, that was the only time we didn't feel safe. 

So today after flying was "interesting".  Danny and David (a California friend) both landed in a field behind a housing development.  There was an old guy on a  tractor there who didn't seem to mind our presence.  We packed up both balloons and headed out the way we came in .  The organizer of the "Chili Balloon Tour" was our chase crew and truck.  He's a nice guy and down to earth. We got to the gate and it was closed with an angry man standing there. (David's truck and chase crew evidently got to the gate before the angry farmer showed up.  We were maybe 1 minute behind him.  The tour organizer talked to the man in Spanish but you could tell they were  both getting VERY angry. Then the farmer ordered the gate locked, and his employees responded right away.  So now, that's a fine fix to be in.  By the way referring to the paragraph above we weren't actually really afraid.  We knew we would be rescued.  And in about 10 minutes a lady official of the City along with a big guy arrived and after some apologizing from the City, the farmer ordered the gate unlocked.  Ahhhhhh freedom at last.  It was a weird feeling.  By the way, that's the first time I have seen grapes laying in the sun waiting to be raisins.  That farmer would have been really ticked at us if he knew we had snagged a bunch of grapes to snack on.  During that flight, Danny got to relive our early days of flying in Illinois.  There was a field of corn just past the tassle stage and he flew (as we used to) right at the top of the corn.  For those of you that are not balloon people, that's a fun challenge to maintain an exact height like that.

It's summer here and the main crop is Grapes.  Danny says it's really beautiful from the air to see the vineyards, hay and corn fields.  I haven't had the opportunity to fly with him yet.  We've been trying to fly sponsors and other people the event assigns to us.  After we fly in Valdivia, we will go to northern Chile to fly the Valley of the Moon.  This part of the trip is just a treat for the pilots, no sponsors to fly.  I figure I'll get in the air with Danny then. 

Boy this email is turning into a book

Our European counterparts are here.  They fit right in this group.  They are all English, and live in England except for one who lives in Ireland. 

Tomorrow we leave for Valdivia.............. south of Santiago.  According to the map it's a pretty large city.  I believe that is where we will see the President of Chile.  I think (there's a lot of that) they fly us to Valdivia because it is so far south. 

This morning after the balloons launched and before we left for the chase, two young women came up to me and asked if they could have their picture taken with me.  I agreed and we took the picture.  One of the girls spoke excellent English and it turns out she was an English major from Los Andes just finishing her Masters.  Why the picture?  We're kind of getting used to our "Rock Star" status.  That's the Chilean label not ours.  They view us as celebrities, especially in the smaller towns.  

One last observation:  there has only been one hotel out of 4 that had washcloths.  (the nice one in Vina Del Mar) We asked one of the interpreters and he said it's just a custom.  They wash with their hands.  So we found a little store that had what looks like small dish towels and bought ourselves each a wash cloth.

Must go now..........have to go to the park again.  We'll fly if we can.  If not we'll try to stand the balloons up.

Chou!
Danny and Wendy