10 Days taste of Tanzania

Your Tanzania adventure begins as your plane touches down at the Kilimanjaro International Airport an hour outside the city of Arusha. You are met by your friendly guide and transferred to a welcoming guesthouse for a good night’s sleep. Accommodations: Kigongoni Lodge.

Drive approximately two hours south to Tarangire National Park. Settle in at your lodge and take an afternoon game drive to see the great diversity of wildlife including giraffe, buffalo, eland, zebra and predators such as lion, leopard and cheetah who pass beneath the majestic baobab trees which dot the landscape. Your permanent tented camp is strategically located just outside the boundary of Tarangire National Park in a 25,000 acre concession area provided by the local Maasai Community and where it’s possible to go on bush walks with native guides. Each large canvas tent is raised on stilts with hard wood floors, ensuite baths, hot and private verandas with stunning views of Rift Valley Escarpment. Accommodations: Maramboi Camp. Meals Included: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner.

A morning game drive gives you the chance to feel the rhythms of the bush as you watch elephant families shuffling through the brush, learn to tell the difference between impala and Grant’s gazelle, and watch for jackals scavenging the remains of a kill. Your expert guide knows the park well and is always on the lookout for the signs of animal activity. Fortified with a delicious camp lunch, decide to go on a guided walk with Maasai warriors in the savanna learning about their tribe’s traditional values, rituals and daily life or simply relax and enjoy a swim at the lodge overlooking the expansive Lake Manyara shoreline.

Visit a Maasai boma to learn about their way of life. The Maasai are known for their elaborate beaded necklaces and you have the chance to try your hand beading under the tutelage of Maasai women from a local beading co-op. Departing Tarangire our next stop is the vibrant market village of Mto Wa Mbu located near the shores of Lake Manyara and featuring a colorful mix of different Tanzanian cultures. Walk with a local guide past village homes, through farms growing various fruits and vegetables and learn about milling rice and zero grazing techniques. Taste the spicy flavors of a traditional east African meal in the home of our village hosts before driving on to our small permanent tented camp lying amidst a palm and acacia forest on the shores of Lake Eyasi.

Arise early to spend the morning experiencing the daily life of the WaHadzabe, a tribe of hunter gatherers. Small in stature and speaking in an ancient click dialect, the Bushmen survive by their ability to blend into their surroundings and subsist off the land. Choose to join the men and learn to hunt with a bow and arrow and start a fire or join the women gathering roots, tubers and wild fruit and preparing food. Exploring a way of life vastly different than your own is an unforgettable experience! Leave the nomadic life of the Bushmen and travel to the outer slopes of the Ngorongoro Crater. Relax with a refreshing swim in the lodge pool before feasting on delicious homemade cuisine featuring fresh vegetables, free range chicken, dairy products and coffee from this working organic farm.

Descend the 2000 foot walls of the Ngorongoro Crater for a day of game viewing inside this World Heritage site. The caldera is home to more than 20,000 animals spread throughout a variety of ecosystems. Mesmerized by the herds of animals, look for the rare black rhinoceros, elephant bulls with enormous tusks, and black-maned lions among the wildebeest, Thomson’s gazelles, zebra, reedbucks, monkeys, and baboons. As the animals have little to fear from humans it is often possible to see wildlife quite close up. You may also see local Maasai grazing their cattle along the crater rim. Take time during your picnic lunch to simply soak in the beauty of this memorable scene.

Leaving the crater highlands you travel to one of the most famous wildlife sanctuaries in the world, the Serengeti National Park. Stopping to walk in the Olduvai Gorge, learn more about the early hominid findings of Louis and Mary Leakey and see the remains of early man, his artifacts and other fossilized prehistoric animals. Game view as you drive across the vast and pristine landscape seeing animals roaming freely just as they have for thousands of years. During the months of migration these seemingly unending plains contain huge numbers of wildebeest and zebra. In December these animals are concentrated at the Ndutu and Salei plains near our Deluxe Tented Camp.

Without a specific schedule or route your game drives allow you to follow the rhythms of the limitless wildlife and witness the daily struggle between predators and prey. The “kopjes”, massive islands of granite standing in a sea of grass, provide shelter to a great variety of animals from the elusive leopard to the tiny dik-dik. Learn to track animals, paying particular interest to any species you have yet to see. In the evening enjoy home cooked African camp specialties and gaze up at the brilliant blanket of stars carpeting the African sky.

Appreciate your last morning in the bush before a spectacular light aircraft flight over the plains of the Serengeti brings you back to Arusha. Relax in your hotel day room and enjoy dinner at the hotel (not included) before you transfer to the airport to board your international flight loaded with enough African memories to last a life time.