Watching the sun rise over the endless plains of Kenya’s most famous game reserve is just one of the highlights of a balloon safari, writes Sreerema Banoo

The scariest part about taking a hot air balloon flight really is getting into the basket; with the balloon barely inflated, passengers crawl into the basket lying on its side, lie down with head sticking out a little and draw their knees to their chest. As I contemplate the inelegance of the entire process, the pilot, Captain Milton, looks at me and says, “It’s your turn to get in”. I put my camera away and squeeze in next to my other half and assume the position. Holding on to the wicker handlebars, I feel as if I’m in a homemade rocket about to blast off into space.

For about a minute or so nothing happens; all 16 of us are on our backs. I wriggle and shimmy to get comfortable but keep my hands firmly on the handles; after all, this is rule No 2 of the pilot’s three rules of hot air ballooning. The first is “no smoking” and the third “no getting out of the basket”.

Before long there’s a whoosh of hot air; heated by the fuel (which is ordinary cooking gas), the air in the balloon envelope is now hotter than the cold air of the morning, which gives the balloon its lift. Gradually, the basket rises off its side to rest on its bottom. The ground crew hold the basket steady with ropes but it’s not long before the balloon is filled with hot air and we take off. This is the “Houston, we have lift-off” moment and it is thrilling; all of us, even the lady two seats away who’s kept her eyes closed all this while, are smiling. And there is much to smile about: the sun is just beginning to make its presence felt, bathing the horizon in orange.

This is the Maasai Mara, Kenya’s most famous and most frequented 1,500 sq km wildlife reserve. While you do get a sense of its size during game drives, it’s only when you’re some 200ft above ground that you truly appreciate the immensity and grandeur of the reserve.

Hot air ballooning is not a new activity in this East African country. While it’s the tourists who make up most of the passengers, hot air ballooning in Kenya began in 1962 when Anthony Smith, a writer and gas balloonist from England, flew from Zanzibar over the Serengeti plains and the Rift Valley.

His cameraman on the flight was wildlife photographer Alan Root, who ventured that ballooning would offer the best means to film wildlife from a bird’s-eye view as opposed to a plane or helicopter that would not have been able to fly low enough or be as quiet. Soon, Root began getting requests from tourists to take them up on flights, and that was how Balloon Safaris Ltd was born in 1976.

The balloons stand as high as a 10-storey building, are 100ft across at their equator and have a volume of up to 415,000 cu ft or about 12,000 cu m. They are among the largest operational balloons in the world. At sea level, they can lift over two tonnes; in Africa, they carry a maximum of 16 passengers plus a pilot. This is the balloon we’re taking, the Ndobu, which is also the biggest in Kenya.

Balloon Safaris, like the other hot air balloon operators in Kenya (apart from the Maasai Mara, hot air ballooning is also available at Amboseli and the Great Rift Valley), take off at dawn.

“This is when the wind is at its calmest. In ballooning, reading the wind is everything,” says Milton, a Kiwi who at the time of our flight was into his 13th season of piloting hot air balloons in Kenya. Having flown hot air balloons in Egypt, Australia and his native New Zealand, Milton says “nothing beats Kenya”.

“It’s easier and a sheer joy because there are no power lines. Power lines are the biggest killers of balloons,” he adds.

With 13 seasons under his belt — he has lost count of the number of flights — Milton never tires of the experience. “It may be similar, each experience, but every flight is different.”

Indeed, being up here in this balloon, with the flat plains and rolling hills spread out below, I can appreciate how this can be an addiction.

It is slightly nippy that morning, but you’re never really cold, what with the hot air being released every few minutes. The wind is gentle and our speed is about nine knots, says the pilot. While our flight path is entirely up to the winds, the pilot controls our flying height; the balloon’s lift comes from the hot air — the hotter the balloon, the faster it rises and as it cools, it descends. We fly steadily at an average of 150ft; occasionally, we plumb down 40ft to 50ft above ground to get a closer look at the wildlife.

And there is an abundance of that. It is August and August in the Maasai Mara means that the migration season is well under way. Dubbed the “Eighth Wonder of the World”, the migration takes places annually. From July to October, some two million wildebeest and about 200,000 zebra and gazelle migrate from the Serengeti plains in Tanzania to the Maasai Mara in search of rain-ripened grass. The arrival of the short rains in November calls the migration southwards and soon, the herds make their way back to the Serengeti to calve, until the next year when they make the trek again.

Migrating wildebeests and zebras can be seen in the hundreds as you drive around the Maasai Mara but here, some 100ft above ground, is where you can truly appreciate the wonder of this natural spectacle. The animals appear like black ants scattered across a sheet of golden biscuit dough. As the balloon drifts closer, you see that the beasts are not randomly roaming the plains; there seems to be a zigzag pattern to their trek. The animals feed as they move across the plains — you can tell where a wildebeest has been from the “baldness” of the area of grassland. The whoosh of the hot air being released sends the animals scampering, but they soon fall back into formation when they realise that they’re not in any danger.

While many visitors head to the Maasai Mara during the migration months, the reserve also attracts tourists during the rest of the year, thanks to the resident wildlife — lions, cheetahs, hyenas, giraffes, elephants and warthogs, to name but a few. And while some animals, like the lions, are easy to spot, encountering other animals like the black rhino is more difficult. Fewer in number, rhinos also mainly live in the bush, away from the tracks traversed by game vehicles. So balloon flights give you that opportunity to spot some of these elusive creatures.

As we skim over the treetops, someone yells, “Rhino!” We dip lower and seconds later two black rhinos, an adult and a calf, are spotted. The whoosh of the hot air sends them running out into a clearing and now in full view, these formidable animals are a sight to behold. Another whoosh of hot air and the duo are off on a full trot. With just an estimated 17 to 25 black rhinos remaining in the Maasai Mara, their population having been decimated by poaching to supply the illegal trade in rhino horns, a sighting like this is rare and special. A few minutes later, we spot three buffaloes at the edge of the bush and then a pair of giraffes.

We’re nearing the end of our flight, having been airborne for an hour, and the pilot announces that we’re about to land. In the distance, we see a few game vehicles that have been in contact with the pilot via walkie-talkie and are now on their way to retrieve us. We dip lower and ready ourselves for the landing. As the basket skims over a termite mound, a warthog sprints out, startling most of the passengers.

After that final bit of excitement, it looks like we’re finally ready to land. As the winds are so mild this morning, the basket comes to rest gently on the grass. It’s a smooth landing.

We’re helped out of the basket — getting out is less of a drama than getting in because you climb out of an upright basket — and head to the waiting vehicles that then take us to the breakfast site located on a grassy plain a short distance away from the Mara River.

Every balloon safari ends with a champagne breakfast complete with egg and bacon quiche, spinach quiche, boiled eggs, sausages, pastries, yoghurt and fruit. The food is scrummy as is the bubbly, and I can think of no better way to cap a memorable morning of sailing over this beautiful land.

This article appeared in Options, the lifestyle pullout of The Edge Malaysia, Issue 809, Jun 7-13, 2010.