We took a hot air balloon and a full day safari tour on this day！
Tips: We chose Natural World to arrange our private tour. They are professional. If you want to know how we chose Natural World, you can click here to view the procedure.
Hot Air Balloon
There are not too many hot air balloon companies. August is peak season. If you want to take the hot air balloon, it will be better to book in advance. We ask edfor quotations first.
Yesterday, the hot air balloon staff told us some important information:
1. The morning call was at 4:30.
2. Coffee or tea would be served beside the restaurant at 5:00.
3. Departure was at 5:15.
We were given a receipt and told that we needed to show it to their company’s driver since they were not the only hot air balloon company in Masai Mara.
I got up at 4:00, but no one called us because there was no telephone in our room. However, not until someone knocked at our door at around 4:35 did we realize what was “morning call”!
We met the driver who would take us to the hot air balloon venue. Other people were drinking coffee and tea beside the reataurant.
We headed for the hot air balloon venue at 5:20. Not only was it dark, but there were also not signs on the way. Sometimes I even could see game beside the road! About an hour later, we arrived at the venue at dawn.
We needed to go through the security check point first. Smoking is banned and they will confiscate the lighters until you come back. After that, the pilot took us to register and then went to the hot air balloon which we were going to take. The capacity of the hot air balloon is 16 persons. My husband and I needed to stand different section of the basket. Nonetheless, these two seats were the best! Although we could not stand in the same section, we stood next to each other because we stood in the end of the basket respectively. We both had more than 300 degrees of view! Besides, it was easy for us to take pictures for each other and selfies.
The duration was about an hour. During the flight, the pilot said there were lions and rhinos, but we could not see those even with binoculars.
We needed to lie on the baskets when the hot air balloon took off and landed.
No sooner we had landed than there were vehicles waiting for us. They drove us to eat breakfast.
When we got the place for breakfast, our guide, Aden, had waited for us. He was extremely responsible! We needed to eat breakfast and get the certificates, but he waited for us while we ate breakfast. The place was stunning! What an amazing savannah! The hot air balloon company was very kind to offer clean toilets and water (red circles)! Thankfully, they provided the toilets because we would have a full day safari tour in Masai Mara where there were not toilets.
Masai Mara Safari – The Great Migration
In addition to living animals, you can see their dead bodies everywhere …
Our first stop was Mara River. What happened along the river was the Great Migration. Actually, wildebeests and zebras migrate every day. You can go to this website (https://www.discoverafrica.com/migration/map/) to find out their route. Nevertheless, they only cross the river twice a year - they cross Grumeti River in Tanzania in June and cross the Mara River in July and August. Crossing the Mara River is more famous than the Grumeti River.
When we got there to surprise and dismany, we saw the last one crossing the river! However, our guide told us, the hill was full of animals and the wildebeests would check if the river was safe (no crocodiles) not first. Shortly, herds of wildebeests started crossing the river!
↓Jumping into the river
↓Having crossed the river
↓Someone was looking for someone
↓Someone fell off the cliff
↓There were lots of safari vehicles
Video: https://youtu.be/DI5F4oxTmOI
After watching all of those crossing the river, our vehicle drove along the Mara River in which there were a buffalo, hippos and crocodiles.
Suddenly, we saw herds of zebras wanted to cross the river, but in the end they gave up.
The next scene was so cruel! A zebra was killed by a lion! She was enjoying her feast.
Video: https://youtu.be/77xwO6XNeXk
Afterwards, our driver drove us following the lion. That is because she was evoking other lions to eat together. We waited for a while and decided to give up and find other animals.
Masai Mara Safari:
We left Mara River and continued our safari.
Cute elephant family
Wildebeests who have crossed the river
Surprise again! There were a family of three elegant cheetahs.
Lunch
It was time for lunch! Our guide took us to a safe place and put a checked Masai picnic mat on the grass. We ate our lunch boxes sitting on the peace savannah!
It was also a good chance to take a picture with our safari vehicle!
Masai Mara Safari:
After lunch, we continued our safari!
Firstly, we saw cute meerkat!
This was a giraffe’s dead body. We could even see the long neck clearly. So sad!
What an exciting time! Not using the radio, our guide found a cheetah who was hunting for its prey! We were the first vehicle to find this cheetah!
It was so near! Its pose was excellent!
Our guide informed other guides as soon as possible. In a few minutes, there were many vehicles arriving there.
Aden told us that its prey was a little deer in the distance. We used our binoculars to check it. Yes, but is far far away. It is proved that both our guide and the cheetah have good sight!
When the cheetah was getting closer to the deer, I felt graceful because we booked a jeep! Aden just drove our jeep crossing the stream and puddles to chase the deer. Luckily, the little deer saw the cheetah and ran away. All the ravenous cheetah could do was go to find its next prey.
We left the poor cheetah to see other animals.
Accommodation: Sarova Mara Game Camp (click here to view my experience)
We viewed the Great Migration and cheetahs, all of which we wanted to see before going to Kenya. A whole day safari tour made us exhausted but we felt extremely excited! We were going to a different national park tomorrow and expected to explore more!
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