Up at 5 am ready to be picked up at 5.30 for balloon
safari. The ballooning operation here is
huge – there were three massive balloons each taking a basket of 16 plus the
pilot, Abeid. The flight was spectacular and everything that we had hoped for.
The views across the Serengeti were awe inspiring and we got to see dozens of
hippos as well as lions, cheetah, hyenas plus loads of gazelles. At the end of the flight we had the surreal
experience of champagne and full English breakfast served in the middle of the
Serengeti with our group from the balloon who were mainly Americans with a
couple from Netherlands.
After breakfast we headed back to our landrover for a rapid pack up and the journey north to Lobo on a horrendously corrugated road. We were supposed to be booked into a Special Campsite in Kogatende for 3 nights and then Lobo for 1 night but the tourist office had booked us into Lobo for 4 nights but we wouldn’t have made it all the way so we were thankful to be able to stop the night in Lobo. At Lobo we followed the signs to Lobo Special Campsite 1 but frustratingly found a large tented camp pitched there so off to the Ranger’s post. The Ranger helpfully said he would show us to a lovely campsite at Lobo Hill so he jumped in to direct us. The lovely site turned out to be occupied as well – amusingly this time we disturbed a South African couple having a romatic afternoon in their roof tent! So perhaps third time lucky the ranger knew another site but after 30 minutes of driving round in circles off road through dense bush we decided to camp at the public site back in Lobo which still had nice views if a little less private.
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