Kenya - Masai Mara

Up at 4.40am this morning praying for clear weather as we were going on a hot air balloon ride over the Masai Mara.

The balloon ride was beautiful. Unfortunately we didn’t see too many animals but the scenery was fabulous. Following the balloon we enjoyed a scrumptious cooked breakfast which included some nice cheeses and plentiful champagne in an open plain in the middle of the park. We finished our morning with a game drive where we saw Giraffe’s, a family of Ostriches with about 15-20 chicks, lots of Wildebeest, Heart Beasts, Topi’s, Gazelle’s, Zebra’s. Unfortunately we saw none of the big 5 but still had a great morning.

After lunch and a very (too) short nap we went on another game drive this time in our truck - which was finally rescued with the aid of a tractor and apparently a large number of locals. We were all a little nervous about driving around the park in the truck after last nights escapade but were assured it would be okay.

We made it down to Mara River which is the main river where the Wildebeest cross during the migration. We saw a number of Wildebeest that had drowned during this water crossing which apparently is very common. During the drive we were fortunate to see 2 groups of Lions, 1 group of Lionesses and 1 group of juveniles playing in the grass. It was very cool. We also saw plenty of live Wildebeest, Zebra, and Antelopes, including our first Eland.

During our drive we watched the afternoon storm rolling in over the mountains and most of us grew increasingly worried that we would get bogged again. We drove through some fairly serious rain fall but the roads were manageable. Around 7pm we were almost back at camp and starting to relax when we turned the corner into the main street of the village near our camp and.... yep, you guessed it... we were stuck AGAIN! At least this time it wasn’t raining! And this time we didn’t have to wait very long for alternative transport back to our camp.

We ate around 8.30pm once the rest of the group had been brought in from the truck and then went to bed.