Adventure Safari – Luxury

Arrival day: Kilimanjaro International Airport – Arusha City

After arriving at Kilimanjaro International Airport, you will be welcomed by our tour guide, will be holding a poster with your name who will transfer you to Arusha (45-60 minutes). The guide will transfer you to Mt. Meru Hotel in Arusha city one of the fascinating touristic towns in Tanzania. Depending on the time of arrival one can explore the town by the help of a local guide.

The Arusha Town is known as the safari capital of the world but it is often overlooked in favor of its more glamorous, better known neighbors – Serengeti, Tarangire, Lake Manyara and Ngorongoro Crater. But Arusha has a wealth of experiences to offer from safaris in Arusha National Park, to breathtaking hiking on Mount Meru, Cultural tours, Tanzanite and more.

Day 1; Arusha National Park – Tarangire National Park

After early morning breakfast you will drive to enter Arusha National Park. You will have a memorable moment as we introduced you in Tanzania wildlife with spectacular landscapes, beautiful nature and the close-ups of Mount Meru from this unique park overlooking the city of Arusha. It is only in this park you can feel the natural guided walk between herds of buffalos, giraffes and other wild animals. You will eat your lunch at the beautiful scenery and shores of Momela lakes within the park. In the late afternoon you will take a drive pass by the town of Arusha to Tarangire area where you will overnight at a beautiful Tarangire Safari Lodge-FB

The Arusha National Park is a relatively small area, but it offers stunning sceneries with a wide range of habitats, from the imposing peaks of Mount Meru, afro-montane forests, the Ngurdoto Crater to the Momela lakes. The shadowy montane forest is the only place in the northern safari circuit where the acrobatic black-and-white colobus monkey can be easily seen, as well as some of its other inhabitants: blue monkeys or the colourful turquoise and trogons.

Further north, rolling grassy hills enclose the tranquil beauty of the Momela Lakes, each one of the seven lakes featuring a unique green-blue hue. Their shallows are the habitat of a rich selection of resident and migrant waterfowl, especially thousands of flamingos which let the lakes tinged with pink. Shaggy waterbucks complete the scenic landscape, when displaying their large lyre-shaped horns on the watery fringes. Observe the long-necked giraffes as they glide across the grassy hills, between grazing zebra herds, and discover wide-eyed dik-dik darting into scrubby bushes like overgrown hares on spindly legs.

Day 2; Tarangire NP – Ngorongoro Conservation Area

After breakfast you will be heading into the Tarangire National Park for a morning game drive. The park runs along the line of the Tarangire River and is mainly made up of low-lying hills on the Great Rift Valley floor. Its natural vegetation mainly consists of Acacia woodland and giant African Baobab trees, with huge swamp areas in the south. Both the river and the swamps act like a magnet for wild animals, during Tanzania’s dry season. In the afternoon you will eat your lunch at the picnic overlooking Tarangire River before you depart to Ngorongoro Conservation Area where you will overnight at Ngorongoro Sopa Lodge-FB

Tarangire– This National Park enables you to experience an unrivalled landscape of open plains, dotted with thousands of baobabs. Not only does the meandering Tarangire River attract a vast number of wildlife, but the Park is also especially renowned for its huge elephant herds, enabling its visitors the spotting of entire thick-skinned families!

Tarangire National Park has some of the highest population density of elephants as compared to anywhere in Tanzania, and its sparse vegetation, strewn with baobab and acacia trees, makes it a beautiful and distinctive location to visit. Before the rains, droves of gazelles, wildebeests, zebras, and giraffes migrate to Tarangire National Park’s scrub plains where the last grazing land still remains.

Herds of up to 300 elephants scratch the dry river bed for underground streams, while migratory wildebeest, zebra, buffalo, impala, gazelle, hartebeest and eland crowd the shrinking lagoons. This park is also home to three rare species of animals – the Greater Kudu, the Fringed-eared Oryx, as well as a few Ashy Starlings. The swamps, tinged green year round, are the focus for 550 bird varieties, the most breeding species in one habitat anywhere in the world.

Disused termite mounds are often frequented by colonies of the endearing dwarf mongoose, and pairs of red-and-yellow barbet, which draw attention to themselves by their loud, clockwork-like duetting.

Day 3; Ngorongoro Crater – Serengeti National Park

Your hotel is located just outside the gate of Ngorongoro Conservation Area that will take only 20 minutes to the entrance after your early breakfast. You then enter the conservation area of Ngorongoro and descend 600m into this magnificent crater for a morning, half-day game drive. The Crater is one of the most densely crowded African wildlife areas in the world and is home to an estimated 30,000 animals including some of Tanzania’s last remaining black rhino. Supported by a year round water supply and fodder, the Ngorongoro Crater supports a vast variety of animals, which include herds of wildebeest, zebra, buffalo, eland, warthog, hippo, and giant African elephants. You will enjoy a picnic lunch in the crater, after which you will climb up of the crater and travel to enter the Serengeti National Park. Dinner and overnight shall be at an amazing lodge the Serengeti Serena Hotel-FB

The Ngorongoro Crater is the largest unbroken ancient volcanic caldera in the world. In 1979 this nearly three million year old area was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The former volcano crater is also considered to be “Africa’s Garden of Eden”, as it is a haven for thousands of wild game, including lions, elephants, wildebeests, zebras, rhinos, Thomson’s gazelles and buffaloes. The crater is among the 8 Natural Wonders of the World.

Day 4; Full day in Serengeti National Park

Serengeti National Park is undoubtedly the best-known wildlife sanctuary in the world and it has the greatest concentration of plains game in Africa.

Established in 1952, it is home to the great migration of wildebeest and zebra. The resident population of lion, cheetah, elephant, giraffe, and birds is also impressive. The Park can be divided into 3 sections:

* The southern/central part (Seronera Valley) with its classic savannah dotted with acacias and filled with wildlife.

* The western corridor is marked by the Grumeti River, and has more forests and dense bush.

* The north meets up with Kenya’s Masai Mara Reserve, is the least visited section.

It is the migration for which Serengeti is perhaps most famous – over a million wildebeest and about 200,000 zebras flow south from the northern hills to the southern plains for the short rains every October and November, and then swirl west and north after the long rains in April, May and June. During the months of July-September the herds will cross the Mara River again and again in search of fresh grass. They will have to face the mighty crocodiles in the river, who are waiting quietly in the water for their opportunity.

Serengeti is also known as the “endless plains” in the Masai language. This will be your area of exploration for the following two days. You will have the opportunity to discover this fascinating area and its wild inhabitants driving through the vast Serengeti Plains.  Dinner and overnight at Serengeti Serena Hotel-FB

 Day 5; Serengeti – Olduvai Gorge – Masai Village – Karatu

After breakfast you will depart towards small town of Karatu and on your way you shall stop at the Olduvai Gorge: one of the most important prehistoric, archeological sites in the world, located in the eastern Serengeti Plains within the Ngorongoro Conservation Area.

 The gorge is also commonly called “the cradle of mankind”, since it has revealed the remnants of the earliest human beings, being instrumental in further understanding of the human evolution.

 Later on you will have the opportunity to visit Manyata, a village of the Masai Tribe, and get an insight into their unique customs and their everyday life.

 The Maasai tribe lives in southern Kenya and northern Tanzania. They are known for their welcoming dances where the man sing and jump as high as possible with straight legs, to show how fit and strong they are. The woman stands at the side, singing with the man and do a special dance for woman only.

The Masai believes that all the cows in the world belong to them and where given to them by god. The wealth of a family is majored by the number of cows they own.

The Masai tribe lives in villages (Manyata) and each woman builds a small house (Boma) for her family. The bomb’s structure is made of wood and it is covered by a mixer of mud, wood and sticks, grass, cow dung, human urine, and ash. Traditionally, men are wearing sheets that are wrapped around the body. Usually, the main colour is red but you can see some blue colors and a paid pattern. Men and women are wearing ornaments made of colourful bids.  After our cultural encounter with this extraordinary ethnic group, we will continue getting out of Ngorongoro Conservation Area and overnight at Gibb`s Farm-FB

Day 6; Karatu – Lake Eyasi

After an adventurous one hour drive on dusty roads we will arrive to the northern shore of Lake Eyasi: a mildly alkaline lake which stretches some 50km across the south-western area of the Ngorongoro Crater.

The shores of Lake Eyasi are still inhabited by Hadzabe Bushmen: hunter gatherers, which can perhaps be considered one of the most interesting tribes in Tanzania and eastern Africa. Their language resembles the click languages of other bushmen further south, in the Kalahari and they are often willing to provide visitors with an insight into their simple bush homes, consisting in no more than a tree canopy or a cave. You will experience their everyday life at close and be able to witness the tribe men skillfully hunt small antelopes and baboons with bows made from giraffe tendons and poison coated wood arrows.

After Lunch we will drive to visit another group of nomadic Bushmen: the Datoga Tribe.

Datoga people are agro-pastoral nomadic, and now-days they do some small blacksmith works, like jurally and arrow-heads. They live in several areas in Tanzania, and the majority lives near Lake Eyasi.

This tribe consider themselves the oldest tribe in Tanzania (the Maasai and Bushmen also claim this fame). The man of the tribe do the pastoral and blacksmith work, when the woman cares for the children’s and home duties. The married woman is dressed with beautiful leather dress and have tattoos around their eyes for decoration.

You live the tribes and go your way to the lodge for dinner and a sleep over.

Dinner and overnight at Escarpment Luxury Lodge-FB

Day 7; Lake Manyara Park – Kilimanjaro International Airport

In the early morning, we shall begin our day tour in the place Ernest Hemingway described as “the loveliest I had seen in Africa”: Lake Manyara Park.

Located beneath the cliffs of the Manyara Escarpment, on the edge of the Rift Valley, Lake Manyara National Park offers varied ecosystems, incredible bird life, and breathtaking views.

In contrast with the intimacy of the forest, is the grassy floodplain, across the alkaline lake, to the jagged blue volcanic peaks that rise from the endless Masai Steppes. Large buffalo, wildebeest and zebra herds congregate on these grassy plains, and so do the giraffes.

Squadrons of banded mongoose dart between the acacias, whereas the diminutive Kirk’s dik-dik forages in their shade.

Manyara provides the perfect introduction to Tanzania’s birdlife. More than 400 species have been recorded, and any visitor to Africa might reasonably expect to observe 100 of these in one day.

We shall then drive back to Arusha Airport or Kilimanjaro International Airport to catch up your flight back home.