6 Days – Total Tanzania Safari

7:30 am Ready to safari? Your Hidaya Africa Tours & Travel driver/guide will report to your hotel, residence, or another place of your choosing in a private 4 x 4 Land Cruiser Jeep. Hop aboard and let’s head down the highway. We’ll travel through the pretty Maasai country so be on the lookout for Maasai herders shepherding their cattle. Lake Manyara National Park greets us with its shimmering blue alkaline lake and rich jungle-like forest. The park is famous for its multitudes of pink flamingoes, making the lakeshore their home in a carpeted swath of pink feathers. But Manyara is also known for its herds of elephants, towers of giraffes, wildebeests, impalas, leopards, and noisy troops of baboons. Ever see a tree-climbing lion? These unusual sub-species are a favorite of the park. You’ll find them up on a tree limb, resting or scouting for prey. Toward evening, we’ll leave the park and travel up the signature escarpment for the stunning views. We’ll retire at our Lake Manyara safari lodge or tented camp for dinner and rest.

The early morning light only enhances the colors of this pretty park. We’ll breakfast and then depart in our 4 x 4 Jeep, on the way to the Serengeti. Along the way, we’ll break up our journey with a picnic to enjoy the views. Soon, the immense expanse of the great Serengeti will roll out before us. This is Tanzania’s largest, oldest… and most famous park. The greatest number of lions in the region, if not Africa are found here, along with leopard, rhino, elephant, and buffalo. And smaller species as well, like hartebeest, topi, and waterbuck. While here, we’ll take as many game drives as you please – just discuss with your driver/guide who will have lots of suggestions for spots to visit. As the sun begins to wane, we’ll head to our Serengeti accommodation for rest, dinner, and to share the day’s events.

Let’s get up early to enjoy the morning light play upon the great plains and massive wildlife stirring into the new day. The Serengeti is a large space with lots of opportunities to explore the wildlife over its limitless horizons. Of special note – this is where incredible numbers of wildebeests and zebras breed and during the season (February – March) up to 500,000 calves are born on these plains. But the Serengeti holds all manner of creatures – look for honey badger, otter, wild dog, mongoose, and monkey. However, the park isn’t all grasslands – we’ll also visit areas of forest and marsh and look for hippo and crocodile. Come evening, we’ll retire at our Serengeti safari lodge or tented camp for a delicious meal and perhaps stories around the boma.

Now it’s time to head out to one of the world’s great wonders, the Ngorongoro Crater. We’ll fortify ourselves with a hearty breakfast and take off, soon coming to perhaps the most special anthropological site in the world, Oldupai Gorge. Huge caches of early mankind’s fossilized tools and artifacts have been found here, giving us a roadmap of how we evolved. Soon we’ll come to the Ngorongoro Conservation Area and stand upon the crater rim. Looking out into the vast bowl of the volcanic caldera – 263 sq km (101 sq mi) – you’ll be viewing an isolated ecosystem of grassland, swamp, and woodland, all of it holding over 25,000 animals. We’ll descend the steep crater walls in our Jeep and spend the day exploring this hidden world, cut off from the rest of Africa by its steep walls. Into this rich environment, we’ll be tracking for lion, leopard, zebra, buffalo, black rhino, and even pink flamingoes on the alkaline shores of Ngorongoro’s Lake Magadi. Lunchtime arrives and we’ll break from our explorations to relax and soak up this unique and very special green world that surrounds us. Toward the late afternoon, we’ll head back up the crater and take in one of Ngorongoro’s fiery sunsets at the crater’s rim. Dinner will be at our Ngorongoro accommodation.

Let’s get up early to catch an equally breathtaking sunrise at the crater’s rim. And then we’re on to Tarangire National Park. The park is known for populous elephant herds marching over its grassy plains and by its tall, unusual baobab trees. And though this reserve is home to a migration of over 250,000 animals, it is still not heavily touristed. While at Tarangire, we’ll also be looking for wild dog, antelope, and over 500 species of birds. If you prefer, you can skip Tarangire and instead visit Lake Eyasi, one of the last spots in Africa where you can see hunter-gathers, the Hadzabe people, still living as they have for eons. Stay overnight here and observe how the Hadzabe practice their hunting arts and ceremonial cultural dances.

We’ll take a short morning game drive and enjoy the solitude, only a lightly touristed park can provide. From either Tarangire or Lake Eyasi, we’ll head back to Arusha, bringing you to your hotel, residence, airport, or another place of your choosing. You’ve explored Tanzania’s greatest parks and most vivid natural wonders with all the color, drama, and wildlife they offer. And you’ve taken away photos, memories, and stories enough to share for years to come. We at Hidaya Africa Tours & Travel thank you for your time, trust, and your special curiosity of our beautiful world. We will bring you to your hotel, residence, or the airport. You’ve experienced so much of Tanzania’s wonderful parks and wildlife over the last week and perhaps view the many gifts of our natural world with new eyes. We hope you’ve had a memorable African safari and please remain in touch, as friends. From our entire family at Hidaya Africa Tours & Travel, thank you for letting us show you our special world.