On arrival at the Kilimanjaro Airport, proceed thru customs and immigration formalities and into the arrivals hall to meet by your Driver Guide. (Please look out for the board with your name on it) and you will be transferred to Lake Duluti Lodge for dinner & overnight.
Named after the Crater Lake it straddles, Lake Duluti lodge is the finest countryside retreat that has perfectly incorporated the authentic African rural life setting with the amenities and service rivaling the best lodges in Africa. Boasting idyllic scenery, mild climate, stunning architecture and design, Lake Duluti lodge offers both a retreat in one of Tanzania’s most famous landscapes and a cultural education in a region that is home to a strong cultural heritage.
At 08am after breakfast transfer to Tarangire National Park with your first game drive. Enjoy a packed lunch before driving to your accommodation for the next two nights: Maramboi Tented Camp
The park named after the Tarangire River that runs through the center of the park and drains into Lake Burunge is known for its large herds of elephant home to around 2500 elephants and herds of more than 200 have been viewed from the hotel veranda. There are many other large mammals and the stunning array of Baobab Trees (the upside down tree) is part of this varied habitat. With permanent water in the Tarangire River the park is home to a large diversity of wildlife including 94 species of mammals and over 500 bid species, a bird watchers paradise. During the dry season there are vast amounts of animals that migrate from the dry Masai steppe to the Tarangire River.
Continue to the lodge after your game drive for dinner and overnight.
Wake up for an early breakfast the next morning, depart with your guide into the Park for a full day of game driving. This is a unique opportunity to experience and explore the Tarangire and Manyara ecosystem. A visit to the area is essential for anyone interested in evolution and the origins of Mankind and an explanation of the Rift Valley and Africa's big picture. It is a complete semi desert experience focusing on game drives. Enjoy a packed lunch during your game drive then return to the Lodge for dinner and overnight.
fter breakfast transfer for game drive in Lake Manyara National Park with packed lunch enroute to Ngorongoro. One of Tanzania's smallest and most diverse national parks (330 sq km), Manyara is a more intimate view of the African outdoors. Bordered to the west by the Great Rift Valley and to the east by Lake Manyara, the reserve is host to tree-climbing lions, giraffes, hippos, elephants and a huge array of birdlife, including tens of thousands of flamingos that make their annual pilgrimage to the alkaline shores of Lake Manyara.
Continue on this afternoon to spend a half day in the Ngorongoro Crater
The Ngorongoro Crater, once a gigantic volcano, perhaps taller than Kilimanjaro. Today – its peak long since collapsed and eroded – it is now an extensive highland area with the famous Ngorongoro Crater as its focal point. This natural amphitheater covers an area 260 sq. km and has approximately 25,000 large mammals, almost half consisting of Zebra and Wildebeest. The wildlife within the Crater is one of the world’s wonders and the Crater itself has been declared a World Heritage Site.
Continue on to your overnight accommodations at Ngorongoro Farm House.
This small and exclusive lodge facing the Oldeani Volcano, is only 5 kilometers from the Ngorongoro Lolduare gate, and built to offer an original experience reminiscent of the atmosphere of the old days. The Farm House offers 50 large, double-chalet cottage rooms, created with a colonial farm feel and rustically decorated keeping the African safari and adventure feel. The cottages are spacious and open inside with vaulted ceilings. Although there are no walls inside, there is a distinct sense of “rooms,” including the bedroom, a lounging area, and the bathroom and dressing area. Each colonial-style cottage has a mosquito net-draped bed, a cozy lounge area with a fireplace, large windows with great views, and its own spacious veranda. The en-suite bathrooms have a flush toilet, basin and hot shower.
This morning is open to optional activities - Spend more time in the Ngoronogoro Crater or enjoy a walking safari to the adjacent forest leading to the Oldeani Volcano or an excursion to the nearby Lake Eyasi in the Rift Valley, still inhabited by a tribe of huntergatherers, the Hadzabe. Visit the Oldupai Gorge for a look into the history of early man.
Enjoy lunch before departing with your driver to the Central Serengeti and Katikati Tented Camp with game drives enroute.
The Serengeti is situated on a high plateau which extends from east to west from the highlands of Ngorongoro to Lake Victoria and continues to the north to the Masai-Mara reserve in Kenya. The most outstanding characteristic of this gigantic ecosystem is the enormous concentration of herbivore, gnu, zebras, antelope, etc, on its plains and their annual t migration. The gnu dominates in Serengeti and its herds are made up of hundreds of thousands. As enduring as the game-viewing is the liberating sense of space that characterizes the Serengeti Plains, stretching across sunburnt savannah to a shimmering golden horizon at the end of the earth. Yet, after the rains, this golden expanse of grass is transformed into an endless green carpet flecked with wildflowers. And there are also wooded hills and towering termite mounds, rivers lined with fig trees and acacia woodland stained orange by dust.
Make your way to Katikati, a mobile tented camp located in Central & Southern Serengeti, strategically located to cover the vast Serengeti Plains. The camp offers comfortable accommodation and a unique opportunity to enjoy a real safari camp experience. A cozy mess tent is located in the center of the camp where meals are served. The campfire is ready every evening for appetizers and snacks before dinner. The 10 large tents with ensuite facilities and private verandas will be refreshing when you are brought your morning coffee before your morning game drives.
For the next two days take game drives in the Serengeti National Park with your driver and either a packed lunch or return for Lunch at the camp returning for an afternoon game drive.
Optional Balloon Safari: While here you can do walks and game drives through the bush to experience close encounters with wildlife. Additionally take an optional hot air Balloon Safari, depart very early in the morning to the balloon site and board in time to see the sun rise over the plains as you rise in the balloon to the early morning sounds of the bush. Float over the world most spectacular site, The Great Migration in the Serengeti Plains. On landing, the balloon crew set up a full champagne breakfast complete with “Bloody Marys”. Each passenger receives a certificate from their pilot as a special memoir of their flight. A game drive en route to the lodge or the main gate ends a special morning
Dinner at the camp this evening.
Depart this morning to the Southern Serengeti airstrip to board your lite aircraft flight to Ruaha National Park, the largest Park in Tanzania with an abundance of wildlife in an array of sceneries.
The Great Ruaha River, the only permanent water source is the lifeline of the park where you travel over rocky kopjes, home to the Greater kudu, Roan antelope and elephant, along the river bank through open plains, perfect for cheetah and lion, herds of buffalo, warthogs, jackals, bat eared foxes and river banks rich with birdlife, hippos and crocs. For the more adventurous, above the escarpment lives the more elusive Sable Antelope.
The Park lies in the convergence zone where northern and southern hemisphere birds and mammal species overlap, resulting in an overwhelming number of birds (530 recorded) plants (1400) and a large number of mammal species. The Great Ruaha River is the lifeline of the park as it is its only permanent water source. It is also home to Tanzania's largest populations of lion promising exciting scenes few places in the world can match.
You'll have the next three days to explore and enjoy your stay at Ruaha River Lodge.
Enjoy breakfast then return to the airstrip for your light aircraft flight to The Mikumi National Park nestled between the Uluguru Mountains, the Mikumi Hills and protected land. The result is a plains area with a beautiful orange light, perfect for photography. The park has a significant variety of wildlife to view, from the lion, leopard and hunting dog to herds of the antelope. The landscape is a mix of Miombo woodland, arid bushland, coastal landscape all with the mountains forming a scenic backdrop.
Spend your days game viewing in open vehicles. Take a day excursion to the Udzungwa Mountains for a visit to an exotic natural rainforest home to many endemic species of plant, bird and primate. Trek up the mountains to the rainforest and Sanje Waterfall where you will be rewarded by amazing views across the Kilombero Valley towards the Selous Game Reserve.
Depart after lunch for the Selous Game Reserve, a huge conservation area and World Heritage Site named after Frederick Courtney Selous who died in the reserve. The area north of the sprawling Rufiji River is reserved for photographic safaris. The river is a myriad of wide open water, lakes and channels and Selous is the only reserve that offers boating safaris in addition to the more classic vehicle and walking safaris.
The park has the highest concentration of elephant of any one park in Tanzania and is estimated to have one third of all Tanzania’s African Hunting Dog. The landscape is predominantly flat and covered with miombo trees. Lions and leopards join the Hunting dogs as prevalent predators in the reserve and there is a good variety of prey animals from wildebeest and buffalo to smaller animals like warthog and impala. Enjoy game drives and activities for four days.
Following breakfast return to the airstrip for your lite aircraft flight to Dar es Salaam. Meet your international flight or extend your stay to the magical islands of Zanzibar.
