Exploring Tanzania(Day 5)

Hello and welcome back to my blog! Today we are going to dive into one of the most amazing experiences I had in Tanzania!

Today, unlike others, we woke up extra early: 4am! We got into cars and drove over to this large opening next to a river, where we saw a handful of deflated hot air balloons. They were massive, and so were the fans they used to blow them up! The idea was that we would get into the air by the time it was sunrise, and it was absolutely gorgeous. Once we had made it to a suitable height, we followed along the Mara river, and from where we were, we could see Kenya!

(this is how the morning looked before it got brighter!)

The views were stunning, and we were occasionally able to go fairly low and spot hippos, wildebeest, and some crocs!

The hippos were thriving in the river, hanging out in bunches, with their faces peeking out from under the water. They were also massive, the slightest movement caused a ruckus in the water around them! But a bunch of them were just basking in the sun, making these funny looking 'hippo islands'. They were safe from the crocs too, who lurked around in the shallower parts.

(this is unfortunately the best picture could get, it was so hard to spot them from the hot air balloon!)

Aside from hovering over the river, since it was migration time, we saw plenty of wildebeest traveling in their large herds! And since we were moving with a birds eye view, I was able to capture one of my favorite pictures yet.

The shadows left by the sunrise, with our view, and of course the wildebeest, it was an incredible sight. We had seen a surplus of these guys since we got to Tanzania, but seeing like this was simply a game-changer!

With that, we landed and had some champaign and mango juice(for the underaged people like my sister and I) and headed back to camp where we set out for our first game drive of the day!

This was an especially incredible game drive, our guide had heard the message from other guides in the area that there was a predicted wildebeest crossing! These wildebeest crossings were inevitable, as they had to cross rivers to continue their migration, the hard part was finding them. Our jeep and countless others stayed on the edge of the river, patiently waiting for the wildebeest to make a move. There was a large group on the edge of the river, going back and forth, not one brave wildebeest willing to brave the first step into the water. But after waiting for a while, it finally happened!

It wasn't a particularly large crossing, but seeing one on our first day looking for one was lucky and amazing nonetheless!

We had lunch right after this, and thats when we got the news of a cheetah!

Surprisingly, not many people came to find it. But when we were slightly farther away there was no way we could see it, it was just that well camouflaged!

After following this guy, it eventually snuck into the shade of some bushes, and we headed for a little more driving. We didn't see anything too different, and headed back to camp.

Stay tuned for the next part, and I'll see you in the next post!