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SERENGETI HOTAIR BALOONING
Hot air ballooning is a very pleasant experience where ever that might be. In Serengeti you get an added thrill of seeing thousands of animal herds on the spralling and never ending plains of Serengeti. However, we were profoundly unlucky on the day as the wind took us over a piece of land where there was no animals at all on that day ! Even then it was a pleasant flight on a calm and bright sunny morning.
It was rather an early start for my liking - 4am in the morning. They collected us by a bus and took us to the launching site which was one hour away. In the headlight We got some glimpses of fleeting animals in the dark including a Jackal and some other exotic creatures.
Preparing for the flight About 6 in the morning they fired up the thunderous gas burners and rather loud fans to blow air into the balloon. It took about half hour to fill up the balloon and the pilot asked us to crawl into the basket. Two per each partition in a large basket as big as a small van - 12 people altogether.
Then they let the balloon loose to float in the still atmosphere. As it was a Propane burner only to heat up the air - our baloon needed frequent firing up of the burner. If it is Helium gas baloon then it may not need so many fire ups.
Low flight Usually the balloons fly about a 1000 feet high. But in Serengeti they fly very very low, just enough to clear the tree tops. That is to spot animals in the ground and have a better view. Unfortunately our baloon flew us on the only patch of land where there were no animals ! Bad luck indeed.
Even then we managed to spot a lone lioness stretching her legs, couple of lazy Zebras grazing, a Jiraffe among the thorny acasia trees, few scampering wild chickens in the bushes. The landscape was a pleasant green and brown vegitations on the spralling plains dotted with water marshlands. Couple of small hills at a distance added to the sumptous scenic views.
Rough Landing We flu only at about 200 feet above the ground for about an hour. We had two more baloons for company and they provided some nice
photographic oportunity. Then it was time to land and come down to earth. The balloon dragged our basket for few meters on a rough ground and came to stop. We jumped out of the baskets and the rest of the crew packed up the baloon.
Pilots and the Champaign After the landing we gathered under a tree for the traditional champaign. They served us the champaign and orange juice. While having the champaign our pilot gave us wonderful and humerous story of the early balnooing days - how it all started in France 2 centuries ago.
The very first baloon was launched in France with the man named Pilot to be the first man to fly. And hence his name came to be known as Pilot for the airline pilots. When the baloon landed in a farm land the farmers were not very pleased with the fire and damage to the fields. So they wanted it to be destroyed. However king's envoys with Royal Champaign present to farmers managed to convince the farmers that it was not an alien aircraft out to set fire to their fields but a very first baloon flight approved by the king. And
so the tradition of serving Champaign after the baloon flight.
Breakfast with a Zanzibar theme Baloon crew dressed in Zanzibar Arab costumes served us a nice breakfast under a large tree. All the people from three baloons gathered and had some nice breakfast. After breakfas we had some small shop with baloon related stuffs to buy. I bought a DVD of Serengeti flight recordings.
Then we left for some game viewing at about 11 am. It was a pleasing, serene and enjoyable flight.
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ushakumar
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About Seringiti
This is simply superb.Reading itself makes this much interesting means,can imagine experiencing this travel makes how much thrilling?WOW!!!!!!!!!!! wonderful.Fly and experience with Fire Balloon.