Tanzania Adventure

After breakfast drive to Lake Manyara National Park. This beautiful park is at the base of the Great Rift Valley escarpment and comprises of forest, woodland, grasslands, and swamps. Gazelles, impala, buffalo, wildebeest, the famous tree climbing lion, hyenas, baboon, giraffe, hippopotamus, and a great number of smaller mammals; 350 species of bird, storks and flamingos. Apart from its abundant bird and animal life is known for its tree-climbing lions. Arrive in time for check in and lunch. Afternoon proceed for game drive in this wildlife haven.

Lunch, dinner and overnight at Lodge.

After breakfast drive to the Serengeti National Park, undoubtedly the most famous wildlife sanctuary in the world, unequalled for its natural beauty and the greatest concentration of plains game anywhere. The Serengeti National Park is the home of the largest concentrations of animals in Tanzania and is the southern extension of the famous Masai Mara Game Reserve of Kenya.  It is in this area that annual migration of Wildebeest accompanied by the predators takes place (normally between June and September).  Residents Wildebeests always dot the plains.  Huge prides of lion live in the Mara; cheetahs are often found on the plains.  There are large herds of elephants and buffalo and other plains animals are also to be found. Lunch will be at your lodge.  Afternoon game drives until sunset. Meals and overnight at Serengeti.

Optional: Hot air balloon safari (1 hour), Breakfast. Morning and afternoon game drives in Central Serengeti. Enjoy the open air as you eat your meals in the plains. The Serengeti is famous for its part in the Great Migration.

Dinner and overnight stay at lodge in Serengeti.

After breakfast drive to the Ngorongoro Conservation area, the largest intact caldera in the world. Its enduring charm stems from its overwhelming physical beauty and the abundance of wildlife permanently resident on the crater floor. Check in at your lodge in time for lunch. Rest of the afternoon at leisure, optional enroute visits to Olduvai Gorge Museum and Maasai villages possible en-route (1 to 3 hours).

Dinner and overnight at Lodge.

Breakfast. Proceed to Empakai crater for a hike down through the forest till the water shores. Ascend back up till the crater rim (1 to 2 hours walking) and proceed to Olmoti crater for a hike up till the crater rim (1 to 2 hours walking). Picnic lunch. Later drive back to crater rim accommodation. Dinner and overnight stay at lodge in Ngorongoro.

After breakfast, depart for half day tour of the crater floor or armed with picnic lunches descend to the floor of the crater for full day game viewing with lunch taken on one of the picnic designated areas.  Return to your lodge for dinner and overnight.

The Empakaai Crater

From the crater rim you have a fantastic view in the craters’ green paradise. The caldera is about 6 km wide and nearly half of its floor is covered by a lake. The water in the lake is alkaline and the depth of the lake is about 85m, unusually deep for soda lakes in East Africa. The steep walls of the caldera, clothed in forest, rise in some places to almost 300m above the floor.

The views along the trail downwards are spectacular at every point. All along you can enjoy the changing views of Empakaai itself. In addition, from the northern and eastern side you can look out to the dramatic cone of the still active volcano, Oldoinyo Lengai. If the day is clear, you can look beyond Lengai to the Great Rift Valley and Lake Natron. Sometimes you can even see the distant snows of Kilimanjaro far on the eastern side of the Valley.

The Olmoti Crater

Olmoti Craters’s floor is shallow and covered with tussocks of grass. Besides the Maasai and their livestock you can sometimes see eland, buffalo and reedbuck. The Munge River origins from the waters from the Crater walls, crosses the caldera and plummets down over cliffs, falling some hundreds of metres into the steep-sided ravine below.

Returning from Olmoti you can see the depression that is formed where the slopes of Olmoti, Empakaai, Lolmalasin and Losirua volcanoes join with the outer rim of Ngorongoro. This shallow, grassy bassin is called the Embulbul depression. Like the similar Malanja depression to the west, it probably collects and provides a sink for a good deal of water that appears lower down at the foot of the mountains.

After breakfast drive back to Arusha and transfer to Kilimanjaro airport for your flight back home.

End of arrangements…