Tanzania Safari

We’ll board an overnight flight to Amsterdam, arriving in the morning for a short layover before connecting with our flight to Tanzania’s Kilimanjaro Airport.

Night: In the air

We’ll board our flight in Amsterdam and head south Towards Tanzania, where we’ll be bet at the airport and transferred to our hotel for some well-deserved rest.

Night: Rivertrees Country Inn

The full day will be at our leisure, allowing us to relax and spend time adjusting to the time change before embarking on our exciting adventure tomorrow.

Nights: Rivertrees Country Inn

Meals: BLD

After breakfast, we’ll head to Tarangire National Park, the quintessence of Old Africa, where the atmosphere seems prehistoric. With more than 1,000 square miles, this is the third-largest park in Tanzania. The Great Rift Valley is known for the herds of animals that migrate toward the Tarangire River. The landscape is interspersed with ancient baobab trees, which provide homes for birds, monkeys, baboons, and other wildlife. There are over 350 species of birds, and we’ll have excellent viewing here for elephants, lions, giraffes, zebras, and strangely horned antelopes.

Night: Tarangire Safari Lodge

Meals: BLD

Today we’ll have a full day to explore Tarangire. Herds of up to 300 elephants scratch the dry riverbed for underground streams, while migratory wildebeest, zebra, buffalo, impala, gazelle, hartebeest, and eland crowd the shrinking lagoons. The swamps, tinged green year-round, are the focus for 550 bird varieties, the most breeding species in one habitat anywhere in the world. On drier ground, you find the Kori Bustard, the heaviest flying bird; the stocking-thighed Ostrich, the world’s largest bird; and small parties of ground hornbills blustering like turkeys. 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.

Night: Tarangire Safari Lodge

Meals: BLD

After breakfast, we’ll drive to the Masai Village and to our lodge located on the eastern rim of the crater in the volcanic highlands. The lodge offers spectacular views down to the crater floor and of sunsets over the western horizon.

Night: Ngorongoro Serena Lodge

Meals: BLD

A picnic lunch will be provided as we make our way into the 102-square-mile Ngorongoro Crater, the world’s largest unflooded, unbroken caldera and one of Africa’s best wildlife-viewing areas. Descending from the 7,600-foot rim, we’ll spend a full day encountering black rhinos and hippos, a variety of gazelles, many elephants, thousands of wildebeests, and arguably the highest density of lions of any place in Africa. Flamingos inhabit the alkaline lake in the center of the crater, and other bird life is abundant.

Night: Ngorongoro Serena Lodge

Meals: BLD

We’ll depart after breakfast for Olduvai Gorge (or Oldupai Gorge), commonly referred to as “The Cradle of Mankind.” It’s a steep-sided ravine in the Great Rift Valley, which stretches along eastern Africa. Olduvai is in the eastern Serengeti Plains, in northern Tanzania, and is about 30 miles long. The gorge is named after the Maasai word for the wild sisal plant Sansevieria ehrenbergii, commonly called Oldupaai. It’s one of the most important prehistoric sites in the world and has been instrumental in furthering understanding of early human evolution. Excavation work there was pioneered by Louis and Mary Leakey in the 1950s.

Night: Lake Masek Tented Camp or Porini Tented Camp

Meals: BLD

This’ll be a full day of game viewing in the southern portion of Serengeti National Park, one of the most famous wildlife areas in the world. The park’s 5,700 square miles are part of the 9,600-square-mile Mara-Serengeti ecosystem, home to incredible herds of wildebeest and other grazing animals. This vast area consists of treeless central plains; savannah dotted with acacias and granite outcroppings called kopjes; and riverine bush and forest in the north. Wildlife abounds here. There are an estimated 1.5 million wildebeest, 200,000 zebra, 18,000 eland, 500,000 Thomson’s gazelle, and 50,000 Grant’s gazelle. Prides of lion, cheetahs, and other predators are plentiful. More than 400 species of birds have been recorded in the park! Normally, January and February represent calving season, so we plan to spend most of our time in Southern Serengeti (Ndutu) exploring The Great Migration. There’s an optional hot air balloon ride over the Serengeti for those who wish.

Night: Lake Masek Tented Camp or Porini Tented Camp

Meals: BLD

After breakfast, we’ll depart for Serengeti National Park, home to incredible herds of grazing animals. This vast area consists of treeless central plains, savannah dotted with acacias and granite outcroppings called kopjes, and riverine bush and forest in the north. Wildebeest, zebra, eland, and Thomson’s and Grant’s gazelle number in the hundreds of thousands and even millions. Lions are common, and we may see the occasional cheetah, leopard, or other predator. More than 400 species of birds have been recorded in the park. Serengeti National Park is arguably the best-known wildlife sanctuary in the world.

Night: Kongoni Seregenti Safari Camp

Meals: BLD

A million wildebeest, each one driven by the same ancient rhythm, fulfilling its instinctive role in the inescapable cycle of life: a frenzied three-week bout of territorial conquests and mating; survival of the fittest as 25-mile-long columns plunge through crocodile-infested waters on the annual exodus north; replenishing the species in a brief population explosion that produces more than 8,000 calves daily before the 600-mile pilgrimage begins again. This annual migration is a signal attraction of Tanzania’s oldest and most popular national park, when more than 200,000 zebra and 300,000 Thomson’s gazelle join the wildebeest’s trek for fresh grazing. Almost uniquely, all three African jackal species occur here, alongside the spotted hyena and a host of more elusive small predators, ranging from the insectivorous aardwolf to the beautiful serval cat. 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.

Night: Kongoni Seregenti Safari Camp

Meals: BLD

Enjoy a morning safari in the park. On leaving the Serengeti, we’ll drive along the western rim of the Ngorongoro Crater to our lodge in the agricultural regions of the Ngorongoro highlands.

Night: Tloma Lodge

Meals: BLD

Today’s safari is to Lake Manyara, where we may see flocks of flamingos, pelicans, cormorants, kingfishers, and lapwings, along with baboons, monkeys, and other mammals. Sheltering under the massive escarpment of the Great Rift Valley, and covering an area of 125 square miles, this park is a flash of green amid an otherwise parched landscape. (In The Green Hills of Africa, Hemingway describes the park’s magnificent hunting country.) A line of springs supports the lush vegetation of a groundwater forest, where blue monkeys, baboons, and curious-looking Silvery-cheeked Hornbill live, among the more than 350 bird species, the most common being the flamingo. It’s also home to large herds of buffalo, elephant, giraffe, leopard, civet, black rhino, hippo, zebra, impala, antelope, aardvark, shy pangolin, bushbuck, waterbuck, and many others. It’s also known for its hot springs and the famous tree-climbing lions that laze in the branches of the acacia trees.

Night: Tloma Lodge

Meals: BLD

After breakfast, enjoy a morning relaxing by the pool or exploring the lodge’s organic garden and coffee plantation. Late morning, we’ll depart the lodge in time to reach the airport for afternoon/evening flights home or to start your extension.

Meals: BL

Arrival home or enjoy your Kilimanjaro Extension and/or Zanzibar Extension. Call for more information.