Arrive Kilimanjaro Airport.
Touching down in the shadow of the continent’s highest mountain is quite the arrival: welcome to Africa. We’ll fast-track you through Kilimanjaro Airport to Elewana Arusha Coffee Lodge, voted one of the Top 5 Hotels in Africa 2020 by Travel + Leisure, where the stresses of travel will lift as soon as you’re shown your elegant suite, tucked into this leafy and aromatic working plantation.
On the edge of Arusha, in the foothills of Mount Meru, the elegant Elewana Arusha Coffee Lodge is the ideal place to shake off the stresses of travel and sink into holiday mode. Its handsome suites are scattered amid a working coffee plantation – a leafy sanctuary of serenity. Here, you can relax in your room’s decadent four-poster, by your real log fire, or on your private veranda overlooking the aromatic Arabica bushes.
Consider spending an additional night before your safari to relax and unwind after your long flight to Tanzania. Borton Overseas will help arrange any additional nights before or after your Sky Safari. You can unwind by the pool or in the spa. You can linger over lunch in the garden, dine on fine fusion cuisine or join an open-air Swahili-style feast. Don’t miss a visit to Shanga, a social enterprise based on-site that employs people with disabilities to create quality handmade products – you can watch the artisans at work and pick up a souvenir or two.
After you’ve savoured a brew with breakfast, we whisk you off on your SkySafari flight to Tarangire, Tanzania’s unexpected awesomeness. Often overlooked for the north’s better-known parks, Tarangire bursts with great game – especially in the dry season, when animals flock to its perennial river – but sees few other tourists. That means safaris crammed full of wildlife, but blissfully crowd free.
The action starts immediately: you’ll be scouting for game on the drive from airstrip to Elewana Tarangire Treetops. Elephants are a particular speciality – more than 3,000 (one of the largest populations in East Africa) roam here.
The lodge itself is like something from a fairytale: its scatter of suites teeters amongst the branches of the baobab and marula trees; each has a huge balcony, looking either to the sunrise, the sunset or over the camp’s waterhole. Tear yourself away for dinner, though – a candle-lit feast served in a Masai boma, surrounded by acacia trees.
The lodge has been pivotal in driving the development of community-owned wildlife conservancies, which has seen more wildlife being preserved and more local people benefitting. It also means it can offer the best of both worlds: guests here have easy access to Tarangire’s animal-dense pastures, but being in the conservancy means a greater variety of activities is allowed.
Glorious morning game drives in custom-designed jeeps, looking for a whole host of species – from zebra, buffalo, eland and kudu to lion, leopard and hyena. There’s nothing more electrifying than exploring the bush on foot, getting up-close to the flowers, insects and animal tracks you might miss from a vehicle. You can also visit a Masai village to find out more about the custodians of this land.
As the afternoon cools, there’s only one thing to be done: sit on Sunset Hill, Sundowner in hand, the classic way to toast a day on safari. A delicious dinner will follow, though you might want to squeeze in another adventure: night drives (permitted within the conservancy) are a chance to see the after-dark shift, from prickly porcupines to elusive leopards.
3 nights: Tarangire Treetops
- Best-of-both location in a private conservancy bordering Tarangire National Park.
- Magical ‘treehouse’ suites.
- Well-frequented waterhole, right in front of the lodge bar.
- Bush walks and night drives.
- Sundowners on sunset hill and traditional Masa boma dinners.
Simply, it’s huge. An endless-seeming swathe of short-grass plains, braided with life-giving streams, speckled with rocky kopjes, riffled by occasional hills, rich in Masai culture, absolutely teeming with life. And while you can revel in the bigger picture, it’s also the place to embrace the individual moments: the will-they-won’t-they tension of a lion pack on the hunt; the shock of a crocodile bursting from the river; the white-knuckle charge of an angry bull elephant; the dazzle of the sun subsiding into plains with no end.
We’ll deliver you to your lodge in time for lunch, though the exact lodge depends in part on the season. We might introduce you the bygone-luxe tents of Elewana Serengeti Pioneer Camp, perched on a kopje in the south of the park. As well as being renowned for its immense wildebeest herds, the area is rich in prehistoric paintings while nearby Lake Magadi is popular with flamingos.
Alternatively, we’ll take you to the sophisticated stilted tents of Elewana Serengeti Migration Camp, further north. This peaceful part of the park sees few other visitors; you’ll feel you’ve arrived in your own private wilderness. The variety of wildlife here is remarkable, the drama intense – especially when the Great Migration passes through: the camp is perfectly placed for watching the herds run the gauntlet of the Mara River.
You never quite know how the drama might play out. Most dramatic of all is to witness the pinnacle of the Great Migration, when more than a million animals cross the northern rivers. The Serengeti Migration Camp sits on their route, so you barely need travel at all to catch a life-or-death crossing. Also nearby are hippo-filled pools – you can hear their grunts and chortles from camp.
To maximise your wild time, we’ll dish up a delicious lunch on the go, while, come nightfall, dinner will be served out under the stars, to a backing track of the sounds of the bush. Exploring from Elewana Serengeti Pioneer might mean witnessing the replenishing of the Serengeti’s mighty herds: each year, 400,000 wildebeest calves are born in the park’s south, a staggering number, which draws many predators…
Indeed, big cats are a particular pleasure around the Pioneer camp. Lions love to sun-bask on the rocks of Moru Kopje (where Masai paintings can also be seen). Also, the camp supports the Serengeti Cheetah Project, and talks by experts will introduce you to the local cats, and help you identify them when you’re scanning the plains.
After a full, fabulous day, it’s time to raise a final Sundowner to the Serengeti, as the light softens, the earth cools, the horizon glows. Enjoy dinner back at camp, then sit out and listen one last time: to the eerie call of the nightjar and the whoop of a hyena, to the hippos’ belly guffaw and the lion’s nerve-trembling roar…
3 nights: Serengeti Pioneer Camp
- Prime position for the Great Migration – dramatic river crossings on the doorstep
- On the banks of the Grumeti river, with resident hippo’s making their presence known
- Opulent stilted tents
- Away from the crowds, in an exclusive, secluded spot
- Brilliant Big Five game drives year-round
It’s well worth the early breakfast when you’re about to head into the ‘eighth wonder of the world’. Measuring over 20km wide and 600m deep, Ngorongoro Crater is a natural volcanic amphitheatre, a geological marvel, a festival of wildlife. Its acacia thickets, riverine forest and glittering lakes throng with around 30,000 animals: one of the highest densities of wildlife in Africa. Safaris here can be overwhelming, in the very best way.
Spend a full day in Ngorongoro – our expert guides will introduce you to its vast cast of characters: lions, elephants and buffalo, cheetah and serval cats, hyena, jackal and black rhino. Plus The Manor has special permission to host beautiful bush lunches in a private part of the crater, away from the crowds. You can picnic in exclusive style without missing a wildlife-packed minute.
The Manor, quite possibly the most enviable address on the safari circuit, this handful of Cape Dutch-styled cottages sits within the lush gardens of a working coffee farm, near the edge of the Ngorongoro Crater. You’ll arrive in time for lunch, taken with views over the rippling forest, while your butler sorts the luggage. Then soak in your Victorian bathtub, cosy up by your suite’s open fire, enjoy a delicious dinner, maybe have a game of billiards and retire for the night.
Sundowners and dinner back at The Manor will be abuzz, as you exchange stories with your fellow travellers about what you’ve seen on this once-in-a-lifetime day.
2 nights: The Manor at Ngorongoro
- Elegant cottages oozing old-world glamour
- Breathtaking location, near the edge of Ngorongoro Crater
- Exclusive picnics away from the crowds on the crater floor
- Sundowners and spa treatments
- Highlands horse rides
There’s no need to hang around at the airport – we’ll deliver you back to Arusha Coffee Lodge’s oasis of calm so you can relax in a day room amid the birds and the beans. Take a private tree-to-cup tour around the grounds, to find out how they make it so good. As well as producing coffee, the lodge is home to Shanga, a wonderful social enterprise that employs people with disabilities to create quality handmade products – watch the artisans at work, sewing, painting, weaving and glass-blowing, and perhaps pick up a souvenir or two before we take you back for your flight home, head, heart and soul full of African magic.
