Festival del Global Solar

On December 31 Medellin ushers out the old year with the Festival of Solar Balloons. It is a family event in which people gather to symbolically release the events of the past year and make space for the events coming in the new year.

In its seventeenth year, the Festival of Solar Balloons takes place in The Cancha El Dorado Stadium located Envigado which neighbors Medellin. This year’s theme was ‘Aliens’ and the balloons took the form of spaceships, alien creatures, animals and novelty shapes. There were approximately 30 balloons, some as large as 90 feet.

History

In the late 1990s, as part of a marketing campaign for Milo, a brand of chocolate drinks, a group of boys launched solar balloons.  These boys, now the event organizers, explained that the dark plastic balloons rise and are lifted into the air when they are warmed by the sun.  The heated air inside the balloon expands and the heated air has a lower density than the surrounding air allowing the balloon to rise. Since the early 2000s, the boys have created their own balloons.   In 2001, the mayor of Envigado invited them to create a festival to celebrate both solar balloons and New Year’s Eve. Every year the festival grew and this year the crowd was estimated at 15,000.

The Festival

When we arrived at the stadium, the festival was already in full swing with a large crowd in attendance already celebrating the end of the year. It was a party with vendors selling refreshments and music pulsing throughout the stadium.

A ground crew was stationed on the infield of the stadium. Another crew on the sidelines filled each balloon with air. The inflated balloons were moved from the sideline to the infield where the crew maneuvered them into position allowing the sun to heat the air in the balloon. As the air warmed, the balloon began to rise and within a few minutes was light enough to fly.  Each balloon was released into the sky as the crowd clapped and cheered. Sometimes there were false starts because the air in the balloon was not warm enough to allow the balloon to fly over the stadium, so it was retrieved and launched again.

Each year, the last balloon is the famous “Five Minutes Before Twelve” balloon.  It is launched and the song “Cinco Pa’ las Doce” is played. People stand, cheer and sing along as the balloon rises and floats away signifying that the end of the year is near.

At the end of the festival, smaller solar balloons were filled with air and children and families launched their own balloons from the infield.  (Our only concern about the large and small balloons was our dismay that they would become litter when they eventually landed.)

It was amazing to see the balloons take flight and disappear. There was a slight breeze that morning, so the balloons were quickly carried up over the stadium and out of sight.  When we returned to our apartment five miles from the stadium and looked over the city from the balcony, I could see one of the balloons on its voyage heading north over the Aburrá Valley.

Vuela alto y vuela fuerte!