Today, even by the standards of our safari, we woke up unusually early for a 5.15 am departure. We drove through the night and arrived at a flat empty plain, where a group of Tanzanians was preparing a large hot air balloon. This was to be a new experience for us, and as the sky slowly got lighter in the east, we watched as the staff inspected the balloon’s fabric, and then started to fill it with hot air from a propane burner. The captain of our flight emerged to give us a safety briefing and assure us that he had been piloting balloons for twenty years without incident.
Just as the sun starting rising, we ready for take-off. Along with landing, this was the only slightly complicated part of the flight and involved us curling up at the bottom of the basket whilst balloon lifted slowly into the air. Soon our captain announced we could stand up and we were greeted by a magical sight of sunrise over the Serengeti plains, with the ground far below.
Our balloon drifted gently with the wind, sweeping over trees, herds of antelopes and giraffes. There was a wonderful silence, broken occasionally by the sound of some more gas been burnt to maintain our altitude, and the soft murmur of my fellow passengers as they admired the amazing sight. Although the Serengeti’s animals and birds are used to jeeps, they seemed scared by our balloon and hurried away as we approached them.
We let our minds float with our balloon over the Serengeti plains, soaking in the experience and filming the animals below us.
I was surprised when our pilot announced that we had been flying for over an hour and it was time to prepare for landing – it seemed that we had only just started. Too soon, we had to crouch back down in our basket and wait for out balloon to hit the ground with a series of bumps. Our successful flight was celebrated with fizzy wine accompanied by songs and dancing by the balloon’s support staff, who had been following us in jeeps as we flew.
We then got back into a jeep and drove for about an hour back to a picnic area close to where we had started, for a copious outdoors breakfast. At around nine a.m. our balloon experience was over and we met up with our guide Estomih again in our own jeep.
Amazingly we still had nearly a full day for a game drive, and to get yet more close up views of big cats, birds and herbivores. We got our closest yet view of a leopard, who started lying in the grass in front of us before climbing up a small tree…..
…..and then reconnected with the two cheetahs we had seen the day before.
We were not alone to admire these cheetahs, whose small shady bush had been surrounded by an array of tourist jeeps. We were travelling in the mid-season (January), and Estomih told us that in high season there would be twice as many vehicles. We don’t like crowds and were glad we had avoided this.
It was soon time for lunch, which we had inside our jeep for a change.
The afternoon’s game drive was quieter, with flamingos, impala, zebra, wildebeest and a few more lions.
As the afternoon progressed, we became a bit tired after several long days and early starts, not to mention our big lunch and glass of Tanzanian wine! So we headed back to our camp to recharge our batteries after another memorable day.
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