Monthly Archives: June 2023

Good Afternoon from Miracle Experience 🙂  
I hope you are well and had a pleasant flight this morning. We would like to thank you for flying with Miracle Experience. 

Please see the below flight report & flight path of your flight – A message from your Captain today. 

27th June 2023 – Flight report. 
BALLOON: A-450 PILOT: Captain Trevor PAX: 16 PaxSTATUS: CompleteWEATHER: Clear  GROUND WIND AT TO: 6-8 knots  SUNRISE: 06:42 am  LAUNCH: 06:45 am  LANDING: 08:05 am  LANDING TYPE: Gentle   LANDING AREA: River Road    FLIGHT TIME: 1.4 hr  DISTANCE: 18.0 km   
What a fantastic morning for a hot air balloon flight over the Serengeti. We were the second balloon to depart this morning, launching to the song and dance of our fantastic driver guides and crew, with a gorgeous Sunrise to our rear. We stayed low for the first 35 minutes of the flight, immediately passing a small group of Topis below and a few small herds of Zebras on both sides. There were lots of animals around, including a pair of elusive Eland, a small group of Waterbucks and lots of Thompson’s Gazelles and Impalas. As we passed by the New Camp, we began our climb, only to quickly abort as we noticed a huge herd of Buffalos ahead and to the South. Up we went for a little ‘left’, and then down again for the ‘right’ at ground level. Thankfully, our steering technique worked perfectly, and we floated silently over the middle of the herd, the heads of hundreds of the massive creatures looking up as we drifted silently by. A supremely unique view. 
We then climbed, reaching a maximum altitude of 2,125ft (648m) above ground, while we enjoyed some fresh-brewed Tanzanian coffee from our little balcony in the sky. The view this morning was spectacular, an impressive 360-degree panorama, including a vague outline of the crater rim in the haze to the South-East that was shared with eight other balloons sprinkled across the sky, with the winds aloft taking us towards Makoma Hill, to the South at a leisurely 8 mph (14km/h). 
 Descending toward ground level, our direction changed and our speed became more apparent, and we passed directly over a small herd of Zebras about 100ft (30m) below. Drifting gently along at treetop height, we passed by more Topis and several Giraffes. We came upon our first treat, a large beautiful Cheetah (along with her three cubs, walking through the short grass). Next, we passed by the Seronera Airstrip at 100ft (30m) above ground, another unique experience before climbing a little to set ourselves up for a ‘river run’ along the mighty Seronera River. Everything came together nicely, and we dropped in above the first of four Hippo pools, which was the second treat of this morning. Then, out of nowhere, one of us pointed out a large, and very rare Leopard gliding along a path below the Palm Trees. Gorgeous and menacing all in one.
Extending our flight to 1:20 hr, we eventually landed at ‘River Road’, with our exceptional crew immediately on-scene to assist, following a very gentle upright landing. After some pictures and champagne, we were off to enjoy a wonderful breakfast experience at the main base.    

Another great Miracle Experience.

Regards – Captain Trevor There’s more. Kindly see the below Dropbox link with images from your flight. I hope you like them. 
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/o4zbcrjp4djns7v/AACrfEn_jq2Y2I_6q_kBwdMOa?dl=0

Images from the entire experience taken by our photographer will be shared through another personal link sent via a private email by the end of the week.

In the event that you had an unpleasant experience or if there is anything you would like to share with us in regards to your flight/experience this morning, we would love to hear about it so that we may work on it and ensure a better experience in the future. 

Thank you!  

Miracle Experience Serengeti!

Another early morning…we were picked up by Abdul at 4:30 AM! We were driven for about 1.5 hours to the balloon launching site. They had coffee and pastries for us while we waited to load the balloons. We got our briefing, put on some extra layers of clothing and got ready to go. We started just as the sun was rising.

The flight lasted an hour and a half. We saw some animals – Cape buffalo, impala, hippos, the cheetah and 3 cubs, giraffe and others. Sometimes we flew low, barely over the tree tops and got as high as 2,000 feet. The pilot, Trevor, had a GoPro and took photos while we were in the air. It was an amazing experience.

We were then taken to have breakfast. They had tents and a cook house and made us breakfast to order. There was fruit, 4 kinds of breads, eggs to order, pancakes and other sides. They had special cakes for people celebrating a birthday or anniversary and one for Jacob for his high school graduation.

They also had a fancy bathroom set up called “Loo with a View”.

After this we went to the park information center and had a tour with a guide, Lomyani. He had so much information to give to us. We spent about 45 minutes there and saw maps, learned about the origins of the Serengeti National Park and saw information on the Great Migration. One thing we found out is that the Great Migration is really with several different animals, the biggest numbers are the wildebeest and zebra.

We then did a game drive with Richard. We also used the BNN to help us find these elusive animals. We were still looking for leopards. We actually found 2 at different times. One of the times there were about 30 vehicles trying to get into good position to see the leopard. Both were in trees and hard to see. One had just finished eating a warthog and the remains of the carcass was still in the tree with the leopard.

We saw lots of other animals on our game drive but thought that more elephant and giraffe photos would be too much. We are now getting ready to go to our next park tomorrow.

The Ngorongoro Crater will be our next destination.

This morning we started very early. Our pick up was at 6:30 AM. Our guide Richard wanted to get us to the central Serengeti area which was the best place to find cheetahs and leopards. The area we have been in is grassland mixed with trees and hills. The central Serengeti is all flat with tall grasses with few trees and areas of big rocks and boulders.

The drive took us back past the landing strip where we came in just 3 short, but filled to the brim, days ago. After driving a short while we came upon a group of at least 20 lions. They were stalking a pack of zebras. We followed them for a while but they eventually stopped and just rested, so we moved on.

Then we saw the cheetah. She was perched on a rock and had 3 cubs. We watched the babies play and then she took off and hide the babies in the tall grass.

We next found a group of elephants. There were several babies as well as about 12 adults. They were using trees to scratch itches. Two of them even had a staring contest with loud bellows.

We continued to look for the elusive leopard and also were on our way to a picnic area. Richard was very disappointed that he could not locate the leopard. We were on the BNN (bush news network) and the guides were all talking to each other but no one was finding leopards and not many were seeing the cheetahs.

After lunch we started back towards our hotel and then we came to a bunch of safari cars and hidden in a tree was a leopard. He was very hard to see even with binoculars. I was able to get a picture but you will have to look hard to see the leopard.

This night we had dinner in the Boma, which is an open air restaurant. They had some Masai singing and dancing. They got the kids in the audience up, dancing with them. The Masai are known for jumping very high. It was interesting to see.

Our second day in the Serengeti started at 8:30. Richard was waiting for a game drive. When we were out for about 20 minutes we were surrounded by what looked like several thousand zebra. Richard said that they were also migrating. At one point they were going around both ends of our car.

We were still on the hunt for leopards and male lions. Pretty soon we found the male lions again.

We also saw the remains of a hunt. Richard thought that the wildebeest had been taken down by a hyena, who we saw in the area. By the time we saw the kill, it was being scavenged by vultures. Gory to see, but part of the life here in the wild.

We followed an elephant for a while and then came upon a group of 9 female lions resting under a tree. They were all asleep and moved into humorous positions. We saw one very interesting tree, called the candlestick tree.

We returned to the hotel around noon for lunch, exercise and resting. While having lunch a herd of elephants, around 20, came to the water hole just outside the pool area. There were several babies in the group. They came to drink and toss water onto their backs. They were fun to watch up close.

At 4, Richard picked us up and promised a big surprise. Bob had asked him to find a herd of elephants in the wild. He said he would try and not 20 minutes from the hotel there they were. There were at least 25 elephants, to include a baby that Richard thought was about 2 weeks old. We watched them for some time and saw that as the herd got closer there were 2 other elephants that joined the mom and baby. The 3 large elephants formed a triangle with the baby inside. They did this to cross the road in front of our parked vehicle. We were all astounded by this behavior.

We then continued on to our surprise. We saw some beautiful giraffes along the way.

And then we got to our surprise. It was a huge pond filled with hippos. They were grunting and splashing. We really enjoyed seeing them and watching their behaviors. There were also crocodiles in this pond. In addition, Richard had set up a “sundowner” for us – drinks and snacks. All in all an amazing day.

We have an early night tonight, our safari tomorrow starts at 6:30 AM and we are going to the central Serengeti area to hopefully find leopards and cheetahs. Stay tuned!

We started our journey on June 22, flying from Boston to Amsterdam and then on to Kilimanjaro. We arrived there on June 23 at 10 PM, had our temperature taken and then passed through their immigration. With fingers crossed we waited for our luggage and all 6 duffels arrived. Abdul and Abdul, our driver and logistics people were waiting and off we went to the Arusha Coffee Lodge. We checked in and were greeted with fragrant cool towels and delicious cold coffee. Then we had dinner and by 12:30 we were off to bed. Fortunately our transfer time was at 9 AM so we were able to get a somewhat normal nights sleep.

We went to the airport in Arusha, a different one from the one we flew into, and boarded a plane for Seronera Airstrip. We were assisted by the 2 Abduls for this. The flight was on a 20 passenger plane and took about 45 minutes. At the other end we were met by Richard, our guide and driver for the next 10 days.

We did an almost 2 hour game drive as we made our way to our hotel, Four Seasons Serengeti Lodge. We had an amazing experience during this time. We saw baboons with nursing babies and then came across 2 female lions. We admired them for a while and drove on only to find 5 more lions, 2 being juveniles. We saw Thompson gazelles, elephants, zebras, giraffes, Cape buffalo, wildebeest, hippos, ostrich and Topi. This was on the way to the hotel. We arrived, checked in, had lunch and freshened up. Then we were ready for game drive 2.

Our second game drive was scheduled for 3:30. We witnessed an elephant taking down a tree to get to the best young leaves. We saw warthogs, silverback jackals, spotted hyenas, eland, Cokes hartebeast, buffalo, male lions and cervil cat. The most amazing thing we saw was the huge number of wildebeest, which covered the land from the roads we were on to the horizon. Pictures can not show the enormity of the numbers we saw. I don’t think it is an over estimate to say there were 30,000 of them.

We then had to start back because it was getting late and technically we had to be off the park roads by 6:30. However, we found some lions sleeping by the road and when we circled them found 2 resting males. We then continued on but got the best surprise with another 2 large male lions just sitting on the road. It was amazing and a great end to the day. We got back to the hotel a little after 7, cleaned up, had dinner and called it a day.

When these photos were taken on Saturday, June 10 there was no doubt that we were on our way to Tanzania. Bob was spraying our clothes to keep the mosquitoes (and therefore malaria) away from us.

But then on Sunday he started to feel badly, started cold meds and some cough syrup. By Monday he was feeling pretty bad and then a call from our bridge club telling us they were closing for a week due to lots of “sick” people made us go “oh damn”. Yes, that nasty virus had struck the Batson house.

After several My Chart exchanges with his primary doctor and one tele-med visit he was on meds to try to get him better. We are happy to report that he is better and we leave on Tuesday to go to Boston to meet up with Jennifer and her family.

Tanzania 🇹🇿 here we come!