Hot Air Balloon Migration, why sure!

Let me tell y’all, if you have never been in a hot air balloon, put it on your list! While planning this trip I was exploring things to do and I saw a hot air balloon excursion that flew over the Masaai Mara and thought- hey that may be interesting. Ajali was on board, so we booked it. The girls were excited, except when I told them we needed to be up at 4am to make it to the pick up spot in the park to take off in the balloon on time. Seriously mommy??? Yep!

We got picked up at 5am and started the approximate 50 min ride to the balloon pick up site. It was just the driver and the four of us. We weren’t sure what types of animals we would see driving through the park at this hour, but we were all for whatever came our way. We arrived at the site and there were about 4-5 balloons awaiting to be filled with their passengers. Each basket held a different number of people, and ours held 4 in our section and 16 persons total. We were instructed on how to enter the basket, the rules of being in the basket and what to do when landing. Our pilot was a guy from South Africa, which is pretty common for the balloon rides around here. Pilots are often from there or parks of the UK. The plan was to get in the balloon, go up and see what we could see and then land safely back down and enjoy a champaign bush breakfast.

Jasmine was nervous, Sanaa was just her normal “go with the flow” self and Ajali and I were ready and excited. We got in the balloon and before we knew it we were up in the air. Jasmine often wouldn't look out the basket, but that all changed when someone yelled “I see pumba”. This view was amazing. We saw two hippos in the grass heading to the water, elephants, other randomness and then….a TON or wildebeest and zebra who migrated from Tanzania. OMG, this was so exciting and definantly what the migration is all about. This was what you see on discovery channel and yet we saw with our own eyes!

We had a bumpy landing because our captain accidentally hit a termite mound. Oops! Lol. We all enjoyed ourselves ad headed to breakfast. One of the coolest things during breakfast was just talking to Ajali. As we talked the wildebeest just ran in the distance behind him all in the same direction. This went on for a good 15-20 min. It was so cool.