7 Nights | 8 Days: Classic Tanzania Safari

JAMBO – KARIBU!! It is ‘touch down’ at the Kilimanjaro International Airport. Representatives of Twiga Tours, your hosts in Tanzania eagerly await your arrival in traditional African style – wet towels and bubbly. It is a tradition in Africa to present a gift as an expression of our joy and happiness – what better gift than an authentic (branded) safari hat and other safari essentials!

Thereafter transfer to your hotel city hotel in Tanzania’s safari capital, Arusha. Rest of the day or evening is spent at leisure.

AMKA! – Wake Up! Enjoy a leisurely breakfast at your hotel and check out of your rooms. Your guide drivers will meet you at the hotel’s lobby and after helping you load your luggage in the safari vehicle and depart on a pleasant drive to Lake Manyara National Park; which apart from its abundant bird life, is known for its tree-climbing lions and large herds of elephants. Arrive at your lodge to check in and enjoy a sumptuous lunch.

ACTIVITIES TO CHOOSE FROM THIS AFTERNOON:

1. Depart for an afternoon game viewing drive in this small but attractive park squeezed between the stunning Manyara soda lake and the steep rim of the rift valley. Be on the look out for the baboons, small plains game, giraffes and elephants and of course, tree climbing lions.

2. Visit to Mto wa Mbu Village. This village is very unique, as 120 tribes all reside in it and call the Village their home. One, can experience and witness the traditional way of life of the villagers through various activities and also see a range of community projects that are in place. While at the village you will be able to taste Tanzanian foods and sample the local banana beer, as well as interact with the various tribe members.

Return back to your lodge for dinner and overnight.

NOTE: Warm jacket/cardigan is highly recommended.

Enjoy a sumptuous breakfast then depart for Tanzania’s famed, Serengeti National Park via Oldupai Gorge where hominid footprints believed to be 3.6million years old were found. We will enjoy an on-site talk on the interpretation of the gorge by the resident guide. Arrive at your lodge for lunch .

Enjoy an afternoon game viewing drive. Covering an area of 14,763 square kilometres, the world famous Serengeti National Park is Tanzania’s oldest park, and one of the world’s last great wildlife refuges. It stretches as far as Lake Victoria to the West. Its name comes from the Maasai word Siringet, meaning ‘endless plains’. The park’s vegetation ranges from the short and long grass plains in the south, to the acacia savannah in the centre and wooded grasslands concentrated around the tributaries of the Grumenti and the Mara rivers in the park. The western corridor is a region of wooded highland and extensive plains reaching the edge of Lake Victoria. In the early morning and evening light, the Serengeti landscape is stunningly beautiful.

The Serengeti ecosystem supports the greatest remaining concentration of plains game in Africa, including more than three million large mammals. It is the sanctuary of an estimated four million different animals and birds. Wildlife that roam the vast park include lions (the adult males of Serengeti have characteristic black manes), cheetahs, hunting dogs, Savannah elephant, Cape buffalo, topis, warthogs, hunting dogs and spotted hyena among others. Dinner and overnight at your your preferred choice of accommodation.

Today you have a day in the Serengeti with early morning and late afternoon game drives in search of any game that may still have eluded you in your previous game viewing drives. You may even opt to have an uninterrupted full day of game viewing drives in the Serengeti. Be on the look out for the hundreds of predators that roam the vast savannah plains or go in search for the cheetahs found in the southern part of the National Park.

In the early morning and evening light, the Serengeti landscape is stunningly beautiful. The rolling plains and grasslands, stretch far into the horizons, as far as the eye can see. The Serengeti National Park is one that can never disappoint, one is spoilt by the variety of bird and wildlife species in this game reserve with game-viewing drives; among them the out-sized ostrich and bizarre secretary bird, the black eagles that soar effortlessly above the Lobo Hills.

All meals and overnight at your preferred choice of accommodation.

OPTIONAL ACTIVITIES:

Balloon Safari
Today’s adventure begins just before dawn. Flames from the hot air balloon burners light the darkness as the crew inflate their craft. The first, pink tongues of sunlight flicker across the skies and the hot air balloon fills then rises. Suspended in a basket beneath the rainbow-coloured canopy, you’re off for a game-viewing adventure with an entirely different perspective. Apart from the occasional hiss of the burners, a lion’s roar, elephants crashing through the bush, baboons perched in the tips of the trees startled and screeching to see something above them, the flight above the Masai Mara plains is magically silent. At the end of the flight, the passengers are treated to a champagne breakfast in the bush, complete with flowers. China and crystal are set out on the table that is placed under a convenient acacia tree. The finishing touch to the flight is a game drive back to the camp, and the possibility of seeing the same pride of lions, or herd of elephants that had been viewed while ballooning. A flight certificate is issued on completion of the balloon safari. Back at Camp/lodge enjoy a sumptuous lunch and a well deserved rest.

After breakfast depart to the Ngorongoro Conservation area with a brief stop at the Oldupai Gorge, one of the most important prehistoric sites in the world to learn on human evolution. We will enjoy an on-site talk on the interpretation of the gorge by the resident guide before continuing your journey to the Ngorongoro Conservation Area.

Proceed towards the rim of the spectacular Ngorongoro Crater stopping occasionally to admire the breath-taking vista unfolding before you. Arrive for check in, thereafter lunch.

This afternoon just relax and enjoy the panoramic views of the crater, the largest unbroken caldera in the world. It has been described as one of the great natural wonders of the world. Eight million years ago, the Ngorongoro Crater was an active volcano but its cone collapsed, forming the crater that is 610 meters deep, 20 kilometers in diameter, and covers an area of 311 sq. km. Spectacular as it is, the crater accounts for just a tenth of the Ngorongoro Conservation Area. The crater is home to many species of wild game and birds. With the exception of impala and topi (due to fierce competition with the wildebeest) and the giraffe (because there is not much to eat at tree level), almost every species of African plains mammal lives in the crater, including the endangered black rhino, and a dense population of predators.

The birdlife, which includes the flamingo, is mainly seasonal, and is also affected by the ratio of soda to fresh water in Lake Magadi on the crater floor. Enjoy dinner and overnight at your lodge.

NOTE: Warm jacket/cardigan is highly recommended.

OPTIONAL ACTIVITIES:

Visit to an ‘off the beaten’ track Masai Manyatta
This afternoon, you may opt to visit a traditional Maasai Manyatta (off the beaten track) and experience the culture of this world famous community. The Masai still live as they did for centuries -interact with these nomadic people and experience their way of life as you learn about their customs and traditions.

After breakfast descend some 600 metres into the crater, which is home to an abundance of wildlife and a photogenic paradise, for a full day of game-viewing drive with picnic lunch at a private scenic site. The Ngorongoro Crater, the largest intact caldera in the world teams with an abundance of wildlife permanently resident on the crater floor. Prides of lions, herds of cape buffalo, impala, Thompson gazelles, rhino, golden and black-backed jackal, zebra, cheetah, leopard and the spotted hyena. Unmatched for its natural variety; breath-taking beauty, there are few places on earth where such a tremendous diversity of landscapes exist inside a region this size. Apart from its wildlife riches, the crater is also of great archaeological importance, with the remains of some of mankind’s earliest ancestors discovered in the area, it is also a home to hundreds of bird species, refreshing in the small lakes found on the crater floor. Return for dinner and overnight at your lodge.

This morning we depart on a pleasant drive to Tarangire National Park retains a real air of undiscovered Africa, particularly in the south of the park.

Arrive in time for lunch at your preferred choice of accommodation and some leisure time, later in the afternoon head out for game viewing drive in search of elephants, the park is most renounced for it highest population of elephants than anywhere in Tanzania, its sparse vegetation, strewn with baobab and acacia trees, makes it a beautiful and special location. Thereafter return for dinner and overnight.

This morning enjoy your breakfast then check-out. Unbelievable but true, your good bush moments have come to an end. You bid farewell to your wonderful lodge manager and his team then depart to Arusha. Not empty handed though, with you are photographs – a capture of the special moments you have had on this tour to immortalize the experience.

Depart for Arusha and then onwards to Kilimanjaro International Airport for your homebound flight.