Christine Potter Soaring with the buzzards in a balloon. WoW

This is excerpted from one of my chapters in An Angel on My Shoulder. I had a fair bit of raw material and was tweaking it today, which is why I was later. I know we're not supposed to tweak ... It's one of my challenges, not to edit as I go. Anyway - would appreciate comments. Cheers.

Soaring with buzzards in an African balloon

Understand this: I don’t have an athletic bone in my body. Muscles? They’re marshmallows. But I love being outdoors. I used to get invitations to do jock-type things, and I’d gauge the balance quotient – good balance is something I lack. So an invitation to go hot-air ballooning in South Africa sounded perfect. What could go wrong? I'd float over the land in a dear little basket and be the envy of everyone below. I’d enjoy champagne and caviar on my gentle return to earth.

First surprise: I was to be ready for my ride at 5:30 a.m. (I don’t do early mornings.) Nelson, a cheery African, picked me up in a Jeep. He introduced himself as ‘Bill-the-balloonist’s right-hand man’.

"There’s coffee and doughnuts at the lift-off site," he told me. "And you get a champagne breakfast when you land."

My second surprise: this ballooning business is hard work! The red, yellow, and orange balloon lay flat as a flounder, its ropes fixed to a basket that looked barely big enough to hold my week's groceries. We were four passengers, three 40-something men from a visiting convention of tour operators, and me, humble middle-aged travel writer literally along for the ride. We had to stand with arms upstretched, holding the fabric aloft as Nelson and his crew directed hot air, from the flames of propane tanks, into the balloon’s opening.

My arms ache after washing my hair in the shower, and after 20 minutes of this nonsense, I thought they'd fall off. But I wasn't going to be the first to crumble, so I stoically held my end up. Slowly the balloon filled and, like a powerful animal ready to take off, it tugged at its basket, now held down by bundles of ballast and men with ropes.

At close range, the basket was larger than it had first seemed, especially its height. My fellow passengers gracefully vaulted into it, placing one hand on the rim, and casually rolling over the top edge. Bill yelled at me to get in. It was rising. But how? How do I get in? I saw what I thought was a considerately placed handle. Useful to pull oneself into the basket, of course! I grabbed it and pulled myself up.

"Get off the fucking fuel line," screamed Bill. I let go in a panic. I'd pulled the fuel line out of the canister, but I hadn't pulled me into the basket. I was dangling over the edge, head in, feet out. Bill grabbed the line and replaced it, my fellow passengers grabbed me, and pulled me in. Colour me embarrassed.

Up, up and away, in my beautiful balloon. I heard the words from The Fifth Dimension’s feel-good song in my mind’s playlist as I looked down from our basket. I forgot my self-conscious embarrassment from several minutes before. From some 1,500 metres high, soaring with the buzzards, we could see colonies of black-faced vervet monkeys, a herd of zebra, roebuck, and isolated jackals loping across the Witwatersberg hills.

Bill tossed the foil from a champagne bottle to test the wind velocity.

"We're looking for thermals." He glanced my way. "Thermals aren't underwear, you know. And we don't say 'fall.' Or 'drop'," he added as an afterthought. "It's 'descend.'" If I detected a patronizing tone, I didn't take it personally. I was having far too good a time

We’d been ballooning almost two hours when Bill looked for a suitable landing spot. It seemed all too soon. I felt as if I could have carried on indefinitely. Nelson and the Jeep could be seen driving along a track far below. Apparently, the winds were stronger than expected, and we were falling fast. (Sorry, descending.) Bill assured us he prefers gentle landings and recounted a flight where the balloon landed in a tree and his passengers had to clamber down on a rope. We missed the trees, praise be, and landed in a field where Tswana farm workers and their children ran to help us.

"Du-merla," intoned Bill to the eldest farmhand. "I see you." The grizzled, white-haired old man answered “Du-merla,” and directed his boys to grab the ropes. I managed to get out of the basket without breaking anything. The old farmhand introduced himself and then his family: "This my son. And this my son. And this my son. I think this one my son also." After helping to fold the balloon, the family was treated to soft drinks and doughnuts. But we were served champagne and caviar. And from somewhere deep in the Jeep, Nelson produced a portable stove and a miraculous breakfast of bacon, eggs, and spiced potatoes.

I sighed with contentment. I may be a klutz, but what a life I had! What could I possibly have to complain about?