Mara Balloon ride

The first full day at Mara Bushtops we had booked a balloon ride in the Masai Mara. We were woken up with coffee and cookies well before dawn and then whisked in a land cruiser into the park. We arrived at the launch site just as dawn was beginning to break. There was not much for us to do as we stood out of the way as the crews scrambled to get the balloon laid out and filled with hot air. Once it started to become bouyant, however, then things moved fast and the had to scramble into the basket while the balloon struggled to fly away and a dozen ground crew members struggled to keep us on the ground.

Once we were airborne the most striking thing is the total silence (if you don’t count the occasional roar of the gas jets as the pilot put more hot air in the balloon). We drifted over the Mara for about an hour and then, after a controlled crash landing, the chase vehicle whisked us away to another omlete station that had sprung up out of the bush.