See The Serengeti From A Balloon : A balloon safari above the Serengeti is an incredible once-in-a-lifetime safari experience, especially if you choose to use it for your Focus East Africa Tours wildlife tour in northern Tanzania to see game up close. This premier national park offers hot air balloon trips out of three locations. In the Seronera River Valley in the Central Serengeti, where there is always water, animals congregates throughout the year. In May and June, the Great Migration travels through this area. Continue reading this article to know more on how to see the serengeti from a balloon.
Grumeti River, which is a feature of the Great Migration in June and July when hundreds of thousands of gnu face the enormous Nile crocodiles and many of them die while others veer off course to avoid the dangerous river, is part of the Western Serengeti. During their three-week long marathon, the wildebeests in the South Serengeti plains come together in December to give birth to 8,000 newborns every day. This is a sight not to be missed during your customized Serengeti nature tour.
The Serengeti plains are especially well-suited for balloon rides, which are quite handy and allow you to get a better aerial perspective of the activity than you could from a game-viewing safari vehicle (find out more about the best times to visit the Serengeti).
Although the weather is usually good early in the morning, it is recommended that you reserve your spot in advance for this well-liked East African safari activity because there are only so many seats available. Regretfully, the only youngsters who can be accommodated are those who are fit, active adults above the age of seven. Due to weight being a major safety factor, individuals weighing more than 120 kg (265 pounds) might need to reserve two seats.
They are enormous balloons. For comfort and security, the baskets are divided into sections that can hold up to 16 people for a one-hour ride. The balloons require a safety repair every few hundred hours, which is comparable to replacing them with a high-end car. As a result, the pricing matches the balloons’ large cost.
For each traveler, Serengeti national park charges exorbitant fees for concessions to tourists. Every trip requires a professional, licenced and experienced pilot together with a staff of twenty, for both recovery and launch as well as transportation to and from the launch and champagne breakfast celebration.
Every trip is different; some are low enough to see individual animals up close, while others are high enough to see the expansive countryside stretching for miles ahead. Although it is not an inexpensive adventure, it will add a unique safari experience to your holiday in northern Tanzania. When a couple is on their honeymoon and visiting the immense plains of Africa, they can arrange unique private balloon rides in the Grumeti Reserve.
You will be picked up for your hot-air balloon safari above the Serengeti in northern Tanzania at approximately 0500 hours. Even the one-hour drive through the bush to your launch spot before sunrise is delightful. Through the headlights, you might be able to spot nocturnal animals that you would not have otherwise been able to notice. Hipping hippos may be encountered close to rivers such as Seronera or Grumeti.
A hyena could be trailing behind a lioness returning from a kill on the plains. Wearing long pants and a lightweight, long-sleeved jacket with sturdy shoes is a smart choice for the chilly early morning hours. To make the most of this high point of your Serengeti adventure, don’t forget to bring your DSLR camera and binoculars.
The enormous balloon raises and sways eagerly as it inflates. The burner’s sporadic roar serves as a gentle reminder to wear a hat because the air above can get rather warm. To keep the basket level during takeoff, assistants hold it stable. Then comes the breath-taking moment when you merge with daybreak and lose all sense of earth. The sky lightens from purple to pink as you soar. As the sun rises above the horizon, golden light floods the plains of the Serengeti.
You stare out over your unimpeded basket side to the fading ground, and your stomach knots. An atavistic shiver might be brought on by losing contact with the ground or by feeling completely vulnerable to the wind. You won’t be able to choose where you go or what you view for one hour. You must embrace your powerlessness and allow yourself to be enriched by the sights, sounds, and feelings of your flight, as well as the emotions it evokes. No matter how skilled your pilot is, he can only go where the wind takes him.
This is an unmatched chance to discover a great deal about this unusual way of travelling in Eastern Africa, as well as a great deal more about yourself. From your new vantage point, the animals of the Serengeti on the long lawn below appear miniature. They leap forward, their rear ends sticking out roundly, as your shadow falls behind them. The warthog lifts its slender tail like a radio antenna. The zebra shows off its gorgeously striped rear end. The elephant sags like an elderly man with loose trousers.
As far as the eye can see, thousands of seasonal herbivores are streaming kilometres behind and ahead in herds. You might soar low over a flat-topped Acacia thorn tree, causing flapping vultures to flutter, and then glide over its sheer edge to observe the grassland situated far below. As you soar over the branches where the giraffe stretches its neck to feed, you might just happen to bump into its startled head perched atop it. See hippos in the Mara River below, or startle egret flocks into taking off. Families of elephants marching in a line from nose to tail towards the horizon, or lions standing proudly over their home range.
After receiving your commemorative certificate and a champagne toast back on land, you will drive to join the other balloonists for a delicious English hot breakfast that is cooked over burners in the morning. You’ll gain a new found taste for life, for meaningful talks with other travelers while high on adrenaline, and for copious amounts of delicious food and drinks that are presented in extraordinary flair in truly memorable surroundings. What a way to end a safari with Focus East Africa Tours! After that, you continue your game drive trip in Serengeti National Park with your guide, who meets you at a prearranged pickup location.
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