Serengeti Balloon and Ngorongoro Canyon

Today was an action-packed day. As one can see with my lazy previous writing grouping 2, even 3 days together, today has enough information for its own solo episode. Although I'm blaming the day's content, it is truly due to my laziness after returning from the game drives to write up what happened to us that day. Without further ado, let's get into today's trip. I technically started the day waking up at 2 am having nightmares of a lion attack video I watched 2 days previously where a father lion took down a juvenile hippo, and rather than ending him swiftly, he started eating him alive. Great, now that you also have that awful thought in your head, I want you to imagine me sitting in my bed at 2 am, being woken up by lion roars. All I could think about was that a full-size lion would come busting through the tent, and rather than biting my neck and finishing it nicely, he would just start eating me while I had to watch. This was a greatly enjoyable start to the morning, keeping me up for a sizeable period. We had to wake up early (4:45 am, while it was still dark) as this was the day that we were going on a hot air balloon safari over the Serengeti Savanah during the wildebeest and zebra migration. We were picked up from our tents by a local Maasai guide who watched over the camp at night and ensured no lions ate any tourists. We got into the car for the balloon ride and drove 40 minutes through the pitch-black Serengeti National Park. When we arrived, there were about 5 guys blasting fans into the balloon to keep it from lying flat on the ground. The rain picked up, and we were unsure if it would go. The pilot told us that it was about a 50/50 chance. The rain died down, and we could launch the balloon. I was cold waiting around in the rain, but once you get that massive flame firing, it is impossible to be cold. I think I got a neck tan from the flame coming out of that thing. The balloon was awesome. We got up to 300 feet in the air and had great views of the Savannah below and the ridiculous number of animals on the plains. It was a great perspective on the size of Serengeti Park, its endless plains, and the sheer number of animals participating in the migration. From above, we could also see a massive number of hyenas running around and two male lions that had just killed a wildebeest. The landing was surprisingly smooth, with minimal dragging on the ground. Once we landed, we were loaded into a car and taken for a nice breakfast out in the bush with some morning drinks.  

After breakfast, we were taken to the landing strip, which serves as a lunch spot and a gift shop. We went on a game drive around the area and continued to see many wildebeests in their massive herds; lions and cheetahs were plentiful. After a couple of hours of touring around looking for animals, we went for lunch back at the landing strip. After this, we started the drive to the Ngorongoro crater, which is about 2 hours away from the main Serengeti entrance gate. It is a decently long, bumpy ride all the way to the crater, gaining lots of altitude coming from the dry plains to the rainforests of the higher elevations. I asked Gilbert about my dreams from the previous night and what the Maasai do to ward off the lions that enter the area. He assured me that lions are very scared of people and that they do not mess with people as there would be some hefty consequences if they did. When we got to the top of the crater, we stopped to go on a walking safari with a park ranger carrying, you guessed it, an AK-47. We saw some giraffe, elephant, buffalo and lion tracks at the top. We had a great view of the crater and saw some water buffaloes playing in the mud down below. As we were returning to the car, some local Maasai boys walked down towards the main road with us. We had the park ranger translate, and it turned out they were going to the closest big town to attend secondary school. They were about to board a bus for 3 hours to get to their new school to complete their secondary education. They asked us about our family and if my mom was my dad's only wife, as in Maasai culture, it is quite normal for men to have multiple wives and over 20 children. One of the Maasai men we met was one of 46 children; his dad was 100 years old, he had 5 wives, and 15 of the siblings were birthed by his mother. After our crater hike, we drove to the Rhino Lodge; it's been nice so far. We just had a great dinner and were going down to the crater early tomorrow, hoping to see some rhinos. Till then…

Some views from the balloon

Lions hanging out in Serengeti

View of Ngorongoro Crater

Us at the top of the crater