This is a 6-day, 5-night midrange safari to the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, Serengeti National Park, Tarangire National Park, and Lake Manyara National Park. It’s a safari adventure that takes you to Tanzania’s most spectacular sights. From the breathtaking views of the Ngorongoro Crater to the endless plains of the Serengeti and finally the striking landscapes of Tarangire National Park, there’s something for everyone.
After breakfast, depart for Tarangire National Park for a full-day game drive. Tarangire’s landscape is diverse, with nine different vegetation zones. The largest trees in Africa, Baobab trees, dot the landscape, dwarfing the animals that feed beneath them. Elephants, lions, leopards, buffalos, zebras, giraffes, antelopes, and a variety of colourful birds all frequent the Tarangire River, which meanders through the park. The park is well-known for having Tanzania’s largest elephant population. During a safari, you will have the opportunity to quietly observe many elephant families interacting. You’ll be able to see animals drinking water in the river if you stop for a picnic lunch in an observatory inside the park (and many times lions attacking a thirsty zebra or wildebeest). Return to the camp or lodge for dinner and your overnight stay after continuing your game viewing.
After breakfast, you’ll depart for a full-day game drive in Lake Manyara National Park, which is located in the Great Rift Valley. This enchanting park, despite its small size of only 205 square miles, is known for its beauty and incredibly lush acacia forest of giant figs and mahogany trees, which is home to baboons and blue monkeys. Buffalos, giraffes, elephants, impalas, and a Hippo lake, where large numbers of hippos usually congregate, are also found in the park. Lake Manyara is well-known for its birds (over 400 species), and it’s one of the few places where you can see the ground hornbill and crested eagle. The tree-climbing lions and flamingos on the lakeshore have made this park famous. This park’s landscapes are stunning, in stark contrast to the Serengeti, for example. The game drives take place along the lake’s edge, providing spectacular views of giraffes and buffalos in the foreground, as well as the lake and flamingos in the background.
Today you’ll travel to the world-famous Serengeti National Park, where the Great Migration takes place. Today’s drive up the crater highlands is spectacular, with a stop at the rim for a birds-eye view of the spectacular Ngorongoro Crater. As you continue, you will see the vast Serengeti spread out before you as far as the eye can see. Serengeti means “endless plains” in Kiswahili, and the park covers 6,900 square miles (18,000 square kilometres) and is home to over 2 million large animals. Over a million wildebeest, hundreds of thousands of plains zebras, and Thomson’s gazelles are among them. The abundance of prey that migrates throughout the park attracts large predators such as lions, cheetahs, and hyenas. Along with nearly 500 species of birds, the area is home to rock hyrax, bat-eared foxes, mongoose, honey badgers, jackals, monkeys, baboons, and African hares.
You’ll get up early today to go on an early morning safari before breakfast. You’ll be able to see the animals when they’re more active, and you’ll be treated to a spectacular sunrise. One of the most beautiful experiences one can have is watching the sunrise in the African Savannah. Return to the camp for brunch after the game drive. Transfer to Ngorongoro Crater, the World’s 8th Natural Wonder, in the afternoon. The crater is a virtual Noah’s Ark, with 2,000-foot-high walls and a 102-square-mile crater floor inhabited by almost every species of East African wildlife, including the rare black rhino. The crater has the world’s highest concentration of wildlife. It features a river, several swamps, a soda lake with flamingos, a forest, and open plains, as well as a soda lake that appears to be steam from above. Due to the rich mineral content of the volcanic soil and grasses, the large bull elephants that live here have extremely large tusks.
Descent to the crater floor very early in the morning for a day of wildlife viewing in one of the most incredible places on the planet. In the afternoon, you’ll go for more wildlife viewing after stopping for a picnic lunch near Hippo Lake. Later, drive up the steep road out of the crater and back to Arusha, where you will be dropped off at the airport.
