Fleeting beauty, enduring spirit: Inside Ajijic’s longstanding paper balloon festival

The thoroughfare starring to Ajijic’s shot tract is already live erstwhile I arrive. Smoke rises from nutrient stalls wherever chorizo and bistec sizzle connected flat-top grills. The brassy blast of banda euphony carries done loudspeakers, mixing with bursts of laughter and children’s squeals. And crossed the grass, section teams, each successful their ain matching T-shirts, scramble done last-minute fixes arsenic they coax their delicate insubstantial balloons into signifier for the impending event. 

A festival of fragility and resilience

Ajijic’s Balloon Regatta (Regata de Globos)  began successful the precocious 1950s erstwhile locals sent delicate insubstantial balloons skyward arsenic a prelude to Mexico’s Independence Day celebrations. Over the years, 13 teams formed, each made up of household members, neighbors and friends, each anxious to outshine the others with daring designs and the sheer size of their creations.

Team El Rosario steadies a elephantine greenish prima balloon earlier launch, aft weeks spent cutting and pasting each portion of colored insubstantial by manus to make the intricate design. (Ivy Ge)

Today, the event, which is escaped to attend, draws respective 1000 spectators each September to this Jalisco lakeside town. 

Each balloon is crafted by manus — bladed insubstantial insubstantial sheets glued borderline to edge, reinforced with a woody ring, past fitted with a tiny diesel-soaked torch that heats the aerial wrong for lift. A tiny balloon whitethorn instrumentality 3 hours to assemble. The largest request weeks of late-night work.

Some balloons transportation sponsorship banners, others carnivore sentimental messages ranging from “Lupe, would you wed me?” to “Goodbye, Paco. My bosom ever remembers you.”

Team Pera Loca: Three generations, 1 mission 

In 1 country of the field, 1 of these teams, Team Pera Loca (Crazy Pear), huddles astir a aureate triangle balloon with achromatic tassels, a seam torn unfastened on 1 side. Perched connected a chair, Ricardo Orozco, 63, pinches the spread shut. He has lived successful the San Francisco Bay Area for much than 30 years, but each September, helium returns to Ajijic to assistance retired his puerility team. 

“This is life,” helium tells me. “Where other bash you spot 3 generations making thing truthful beauteous together?”

The team’s co-lead, Daniel Palma, 65, a section creator who runs Gecko Gallery Art Studio, has been gathering balloons since childhood. 

A vendor weaves done the assemblage with agleam balloons arsenic families stitchery for Ajijic’s Regata de Globos. (Ivy Ge)

“The originative process brings the full household together,” helium says, pointing astatine the tiny globos scattered crossed the grass. “The kids spot america making balloons, and they privation to beryllium a portion of it. They’ll marque large creation 1 day.”

When 1 balloon bursts into flames, nary 1 sulks. They simply determination on. Team Pera Loca plans to nonstop seventeen balloons skyward earlier nightfall, each arsenic vibrant and inventive arsenic the last.

Triumphs and mishaps 

Each balloon motorboat carries risk. A abrupt gust tin rip the insubstantial apart, and a stray spark tin trim it to ash successful seconds. Yet the uncertainty is portion of the allure. For families successful Ajijic, each balloon that rises feels similar a solemnisation of resilience, of what hands and hearts tin physique together.

Team Sí Lupita readies the largest insubstantial balloon this year. A 20-foot-tall yellowish cartoon babe chick, its lashes painted agelong and black, teeters skyward to a chorus of cheers, lone for its caput to rip escaped and tumble away. Groans ripple done the crowd. Nearby, a cactus balloon with googly eyes catches occurrence earlier clearing the ground. Spectators gasp, phones raised to seizure the drama.

But determination are besides triumphs. Team El Rosario’s elephantine green-and-yellow prima orb that took 3 weeks to marque lurches upright, past soars smoothly into the sky. Its makers leap and outcry with pride. The assemblage roars its approval.

In these moments, the boundaries betwixt locals, the galore expats surviving successful Ajijic and visitors from astir Mexico blur. Strangers cheer arsenic one, swept into the shared thrill of assistance and flame.

A municipality successful transition 

A squad launches a golden balloon during the Regata de Globos successful Ajijic. (Ivy Ge)

Ajijic is champion known arsenic a haven for retirees from the U.S. and Canada, drawn by water views and year-round sun. But the influx of foreigners with stronger currencies has driven up rents and spot prices, pushing galore section families retired of town. Even so, the regatta endures.

These days, teams trust connected sponsorships from section businesses to screen worldly costs portion donations collected astatine the festival assistance money adjacent year’s launches. For galore families, the globos are little astir contention than community. Each balloon is an affirmation of belonging, a fragile mode of holding accelerated to contented contempt the pressures of change.

As the entity darkens, Team Pera Loca launches its adjacent balloon. It is simply a reddish cylindrical lantern glued from dozens of insubstantial panels. The assemblage hushes arsenic the team’s occurrence takes hold. Slowly, the lantern wobbles, past rights itself. A cheer erupts arsenic it steadies and rises.                                                                                                                  

I travel its glowing assemblage against the evening entity — fragile, flickering yet resolute. This whimsical festival reaches beyond spectacle. It reminds america that quality is brief, yet resilience tin transportation america higher than we ever expect.

Ivy Ge writes astir identity, resilience, and reinvention successful essays, novels, and screenplays. She holds degrees successful business, engineering, and pharmacy. See much astatine ivyge.com.