Growing up in São Paulo in the 1990s, explosions were often my weekend alarm clock.

The strange succession of bursts and explosions, we knew, could only mean one thing: balloons.

The alarm clocks were easy to spot: balloons carrying enormous racks full of hundreds of fireworks of all sorts. They left huge trails of smoke in the sky, continuing their pyrotechnic displays sometimes for half an hour.

But it was not all explosions. Some balloons bore long paper banners with intricate designs ranging from abstract patterns to the likeness of musicians and celebrities, someone’s girlfriend or mother, or, on many occasions, Jesus Christ.

[T]he most beautiful were the ones that carried light panels: nets of candlelit paper lanterns in a multitude of colors, precisely arranged to form a drawing lit by fire in the night sky.

Some carried hundreds of kite-like paper gliders (released by a fuse) which would slowly flutter down all over a neighborhood.

These balloons are big. Big enough to carry people – but they don’t.

They’re not about transportation, but rather expressions of art. Paper balloons lifted by simple torches have been a part of Brazilian culture for centuries.

In the beginning they were small, only feet high, and often launched in conjunction with festivals celebrating the holy days of various Catholic saints known as festas juninas, or “June Festivals” (remember that Brazil, being in the Southern Hemisphere, is in winter in June).

Today, they’re more secular, even involving uniformed teams all working together to make bigger, better, more dramatic balloons to show off their creators’ skill.

In the 1990s, concerns about fire danger made launching and manufacturing of these balloons as federal crimes punishable by prison time, something that is still the case today.

Authorities continue to try to stamp out the interest and passion for the great balloons, but the renegade balloonists will not be stopped…and the balloons will fly.

Via The Appendix.