The group's convoy navigated mountain roads and country lanes, before stopping at a farmstead in the rainforest-cloaked sierra separating the city from the rest of Brazil. They got out of their cars, jumped a barbed wire fence and hiked into the meadows. Onlookers might have mistaken them for landless activists occupying an unproductive ranch, or ravers flocking to an underground event. In fact, they were hot air balloon fanatics known in Brazil as baloeiros who gather once a year to send their enormous kaleidoscopic creations into the skies.
"Balloons are my life - they've been my life ever since I was a kid," said a 46-year-old balloon freak and kite maker called Márcio Júnior. He caught the balloon bug off his mother while growing up in 1980s Rio. She took him to balloon festivals where Júnior would sprint after the balloons as they drifted away. "I went nuts... I was head over heels in love!" he recalled.
هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة February 23, 2024 من The Guardian Weekly.
ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.
بالفعل مشترك ? تسجيل الدخول
هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة February 23, 2024 من The Guardian Weekly.
ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.
بالفعل مشترك? تسجيل الدخول
The courts are pushing back. What if Trump defies them?
Years before he became US vice-president and advocated defiance of the courts over the Trump administration's blitz through the federal bureaucracy and constitution, JD Vance revealed his contempt for legal constraints.
'We're afraid' Can the tide be turned on surging gang crime?
The Operation Restoration Christian school sits amid a line of patched-up housing blocks and streetside cookshops in Trench Town.
Land grab Defiance in the face of 'Riviera' plan
One month after the announcement of a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, the Palestinians of Gaza have begun improvising a new life amid the wreckage of the old.
The scandal of the radioactive chapatis
When details about a scientific study in the 1960s-in which Indian women in Britain were given radioactive food without their consent - became public, there was shock and anxiety. But what exactly happened?
Soul.survivors
De La Soul's return was shattered by the death of Dave 'Trugoy' Jolicoeur. Now a duo, they discuss grief, Gorillaz and never giving up
Annexation talk gives Canadians a reason to pull together
Alone figure takes to the stage, a giant maple leaf flag rippling on a screen behind him as he gingerly approaches the microphone.
Friend or foe? By meeting with the AfD, Vance clearly revealed US intentions
The Trump administration is making a big bet on Europe's hard right.
The race to commit an island to memory
Can virtual-reality cameras, 3D models and digital archives prevent Qikiqtaruk's history from slipping away?
A 32-minute boiled egg? Don't let science ruin the joy of home cooking
I remember making pearls of balsamic vinegar, my first and only foray into what is known as \"molecular gastronomy\", in 2013.
As US retreats, plan for a joint nuclear shield deserves consideration
The startling contempt for Europe's intensifying security concerns displayed by Donald Trump and his henchmen has brought an old, controversial question back to the fore: should Britain and France pool their nuclear weapons capabilities and create a Europe-wide defensive nuclear shield to deter Vladimir Putin's Russia, if the US reduces or withdraws its support?
