| In these extraordinary times, there are extraordinary experiences to be had and one of them is to experience North Serengeti at this time of year but with very few visitors. I sincerely hope the this will be the only year that one can do this and life, for everyone, will have returned to some kind of normal by this time next year but in the mean time, it is an incredible time to visit.
North Serengeti is temporary home to the migrating mega-herds of wildebeest and zebra at this time of year; they follow the local rain, generated by nearby lake Victoria and criss-cross the mara river, creating a wonderful spectacle of sheer biomass on the move.
To enjoy this from the vantage point of a hot air balloon notches the wonder up by another order of magnitude. This morning is another example, here’s the report, straight from Captain Abeid about how the flight went:
"Another beautiful day with perfect flying conditions in Northern Serengeti this morning and we were airborne a few minutes before sunrise. The take-off wind was 2 knots with good direction taking us westwards. We flew at various altitudes towards Mara River with incredible animal sightings throughout the flight. We managed to follow the Mara river for 60% of the flight!
The first sighting was a great leopard, drinking along mara river, then we saw good herds of wildebeest and zebra migration, after Sayari Camp we saw big herds of elephants, then hyena, eland, warthogs, jackals, vultures, gazelle, dik dik, hippos in and out of water, impalas and waterbuck. We then had to climb to get some left direction and came along the road from Mara Mara camp, where we had more big migrating herds of wildbeest and zebras. We made a smooth drag landing closer to Kenzan camp and the passengers thoroughly enjoyed the whole flight.
On our way to the breakfast we saw pride of Lions with 9 cubs . Everything was excellent."
The report speaks for itself but just imagine seeing all of that from above, floating over the acacia-studded landscape on a one-hour balloon flight! For those lucky enough to be able to travel, this is truly an extraordinary time to fly in Serengeti. |
