When does getting up at 3:30am ever sound like a good idea? Especially when you are JUST starting to get your jet lag under control. Sheesh. This is gonna screw us up all over again. Oh well, when you’re on vacation, you just say ‘yes, please!’ The reason for this ungodly wake-up call? Only the best reason in the world – we are going on a Hot Air Balloon ride over the Serengeti!!! We have been looking forward to this ever since we booked it.

We rub the sleep from our eyes, have a shower to perk us up then pack our day bag and get our escort to bring us to the front gate. Because yes, it is still pitch black outside and we do not want to get eaten by lions. Or anything else, really.

Our driver is very kind and makes sure to tell us to keep our eyes open for any nocturnal animals. But…what about the cat nap we were hoping to have on the 2 hour drive to the balloon sight? Oh well, what are the chances we are going to notice anything anyway.

Ha. Within 6 minutes of leaving our hotel, we come upon a leopard sleeping in the middle of the road. Wow! We are so surprised and so unprepared, our camera is nowhere to be found and we can’t get the iPhone to work, we are all fingers! Instead of a leopard, I have two really great selfies of me. D’oh. But I swear, we saw it, and we saw it for a very long time before it was finally swallowed up by the brush.

Okay, lesson learned. Let’s get the camera out of the backpack, let’s get the settings on it ready for nighttime shooting and let’s get the long range lens on it…shoot! What is that?! Walking right in front of us, sauntering, really, is a senior lion. He has a black mane, that is how you can tell. OMG, the lens won’t go on, quick! Where’s the phone? I don’t know. Aah, he’s getting away. Look! He is walking towards his lioness over there. Click. Click. Click. We have some very blurry images where you can kind of tell it is a lion. <sigh>

No matter. Now we are ready. We are alert. We are on the lookout. We are primed for action. The camera is in my hands, the iPhone is in Jason’s. We are ready. Any minute now. Ready for action. Annnnyyyy minute. C’mon animals, show yourselves! 20 minutes later, a jackal appeared just ahead of us. He darted around in front of our car for almost a minute. That’s what I’m talking about! We were so ready for him, we got pictures and video! He was it, he was the last animal willing to put on a performance for us. Probably for the best, we still had a ways to go to get to the balloon sight. Better get a move on.

We pull up to the take off sight at 6:00. The sun is not rising yet, but we can tell that it wants to. The sight itself is amazing! There is a huge (and permanent!) tea station with a gentleman helping to make you the perfect cup of tea. A beautiful area was right beside it, laid out with seating pods and outdoor heaters, stand up tables and the best part of all, according to Jason? The urinals that faced the most spectacular view of the sun rising.

It is time to get our adventure started and we get ushered over to our balloons in groups. Our company will be launching two of them and they are laying side by side. I have never seen a hot air balloon up close, and let me tell you, they are enormous! The team to get them ready to fly is equally enormous. One pilot, but at least a dozen people on the ground getting the balloon filled with air using giant fans, getting the baskets safely prepped, driving the truck that is holding the balloon down and more. It is a well-oiled machine.

Getting into the basket was an interesting endeavour. It is on its side so we had to climb into it laying down. By the time we were in and harnessed, holding onto the handles, I felt akin to astronauts in their shuttle. LOL. Once the pilot is satisfied that the balloon is filled with enough air and everyone in the basket is where they should be, he gives the all clear and the truck drive then pulls us upright. Within a minute of that we are in the air and never even felt lift off.

We could not have chosen better weather to be doing this. The sun is now rising in earnest and seeing the light bounce off the Serengeti landscape was jaw-dropping. We now have the secret as to how National Geographic gets those amazingly lit shots! You go out at sunrise, preferably in a balloon. Voila. No other expertise needed. I couldn’t stop taking pictures. Everywhere I looked, the world looked stunning.

Other than the odd burst of the fire, the ride was silent. Truth be told, after 10 minutes, I no longer hear even that. This was the most peaceful setting I could ever have imagined. Idyllic, quiet, innocent, vast, interesting, serene. Just a few of the words that kept popping into my head as we glided over the Serengeti. There were binoculars provided to hunt out the animals below, but after a few minutes, I preferred to just look around. You can see the animals way better from the ground anyway. When will I ever be able to see the vastness and openness of the Serengeti from this vantage point again??

We were promised 45 minutes of air time and we managed to squeeze in 1 hour and 10 minutes. 25 bonus minutes that I seared into my brain. Jason and I were positively gleeful. We weren’t even sad when the pilot announced it was time to sit back down so we could land, the experience was perfect. Landing was a bit of a mystery because we were facing backwards and our heads didn’t quite clear the basket rim so we didn’t know where we were. Then bump. Glide. Bump. Glide. Glide. B-bump. Glide. “Okay, people, we are here, you can stand up and climb out of the basket.” shouts the pilot. That’s it?? Amazing.

Out of the basket, as gracefully as possible, we come face to face with a table of champagne. A tradition in the hot air balloon world. We cheers, we take pictures and we high five the pilot. What a morning.

But it is not over. Nope. Now we are going to be driven to our bush breakfast site. We have no idea what to expect from this. But we are game. No matter what it is. We follow our driver up a short path and arrive at a huge tent filled with tables, all of them beautifully set up for breakfast. There are a dozen or so servers welcoming us, ‘Jambo mambo! Karibu!’ as we find a spot to sit. This is a huge dose of classy in the middle of the bleepin’ Serengeti.

We felt like we were at a Downton Abbey outdoor dinner with servers bringing us platters of food and serving us whatever we wanted. Croissants, muffins, donuts, rolls, breads, fruits, juices, teas, coffees. And that was just to get us started. Another server came by to take our egg order and once that came to our plate, two other servers came by with the sides – potatoes, bacon, vegetables, etc. It was so fancy, the Serengeti just made it so much more unique.

We have come across a few ‘loo with a view’ bathrooms in our travels and this one rivaled the best of them. Everyone just had to have a chance to use these tented toilets with a screen facing outwards toward the vast Serengeti plains. Once we all had a turn, breakfast was finished and we had a chance to thank the staff, it was time for the staff to hand us our flight certificates. These are not your ordinary paper documents. Oh no, they came in a leather trifold with room to put in a few pictures. Again. How fancy!

We have lived a whole day already, seen so much, experienced some once in a lifetime adventures and it is not even 9:30 am. What else can this day bring??