Great Expeditions Trip Proposal for Dive & Travel Adventures Tanzania Group

Day 3: Arusha to Tarangire National Park

After an early breakfast, depart from Arusha to make your way to Tarangire National Park. Enroute, you will stop by a local boma (village) for the opportunity to learn about Maasai culture in an informative and authentic interaction with the community. Continue into Tarangire National Park in search of wildlife, and enjoy a picnic lunch with a beautiful view of the iconic baobab trees. At the end of a full afternoon, you'll make your way to Nimali Tarangire Camp.

Nimali Tarangire Camp

Nights: 2 Nights
Room Category: Tented Suites
Includes: Breakfast, lunch, dinner, drinks, and laundry.

Tarangire National Park

Tarangire National Park is an essential ecosystem for migrating elephants and one of the few areas in Northern Tanzania where you can find the towering baobab trees, which reach up to 1,000 years old in the park. Slightly off the standard safari circuit, it's well worth an exploration. Its namesake, the Tarangire River, is the lifeline of the park, particularly in the dry season, but the park offers year-round wildlife viewing with great aesthetic appeal during the verdant green season. The park houses massive populations of elephant as well as a wide array of plains game from the iconic wildebeest to the more obscure species such as gerenuk and fringe-eared oryx. Iconic safari species such as cheetah, lion, leopard, hyena, zebra, Cape buffalo, and giraffe are all well represented with very irregular sightings of wild dogs. The bird life is outstanding with over 545 species found in the park. Tarangire National Park is mostly explored on game drive, although ranger-led walking safaris and hot air balloon rides can be organized in advance.

Day 4: Full Day in Tarangire

This morning, you'll wake before the sun with a hearty breakfast and early morning departure into the park to explore on a full day safari in Tarangire. Your guides will have a general plan, stopping and adjusting as you encounter wildlife along the way. Enjoy a picnic lunch at a scenic spot inside the park with more time in the afternoon to game drive before returning to the Nimali private reserve in the evening, possibly as a night game drive. Enjoy a gin and tonic around the campfire with hors d'oeuvres before dinner at the camp this evening.

Day 5: Tarangire to Ngorongoro

Early morning departure from camp, making your way to Lake Manyara before the visitors from Arusha arrive. Enjoy a picnic lunch and safari before continuing east and north via the bustling towns of Makuyuni and Mto wa Mbu for a glimpse of daily life. Continue to the Ngorongoro Conservation Area headquarters and onward to the eastern rim of the Ngorongoro Crater for your stay at Lions Paw Camp. Settle into your ensuite tent with time to freshen up and enjoy a beverage around the campfire before dinner this evening.

Lake Manyara

The flamingo-clad soda lake that gives this national park its name is as popular with the birdlife as it is with safari travelers. The shores of Lake Manyara attract over 400 species of birds as well as large herds of buffalo, cheetah, giraffe, elephant, and lions. You'll hear about the famous tree-climbing lions of Manyara, but this is a behavior common for lions who may wish to escape the sun, gain a vantage point, or seek refuge from flies. It's still exciting to see anywhere, and in Manyara the lions aren't the only tree climbers with a beautiful canopy walk available for a bird's eye view (advanced reservation required). The acacia woodland blends with Maji Moto hot springs where you may find anything from a troop of olive baboons to Cape clawless otters, hippos, and Egyptian mongoose.

Lions Paw Camp

Nights: 2 Nights
Room Category: Tented suites
Includes: Breakfast, lunch, dinner
Excludes:Drinks, laundry, sundowners

Ngorongoro Crater

The Ngorongoro Crater is the world's largest inactive, intact and unfilled volcanic caldera. It serves as an Eden for a variety of Tanzania's iconic species with some of the best opportunities to observe black rhino in Tanzania. The crater collapsed in on itself 2-3 million years ago, and its floor covers 260 square kilometers (100 sq mi) with Lake Magadi a central feature in the crater and favorite habitat for lesser flamingoes. The crater serves as ideal habitat for a variety of herbivores including gazelle and wildebeest as well as zebra, eland, waterbuck, and cape buffalo. Hippos can be seen wallowing in rivers, giraffes graze on the acacias, and leopard lurk in the canopy on the slopes of the crater. Lions are a common sighting, and while high priority sightings do attract vehicle congestion, the crater offers a good introduction to the wildlife of the Serengeti and a breathtaking landscape.

Day 6: Full day in Ngorongoro

After an early breakfast, descend through the dense acacia forest into the crater, taking advantage of your proximity to the crater floor to arrive an hour or more ahead of vehicles traveling from outside the park boundary. Enjoy a full day of game viewing with picnic lunch and featuring a spectacular concentration of wildlife, including the big five. You'll explore the network of roads within the crater, stopping near the soda lake to observe flocks of flamingos, and return on game drive back to the lodge for the evening.

Day 7: Ngorongoro to Ndutu

Early this morning, depart with a transfer along the crater rim to reach the northern edge of the crater where you'll descend deeper into the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, passing Maasai bomas as the scenery changes to vast savannah grassland. On the way, you'll have the chance to stop in to the Olduvai Gorge Museum, the site of archaeological discoveries by Louis Leakey which substantiated his theory that humans originated on the African continent. Continue on safari through the famed Ndutu region at a time of year when the Great Migration of wildebeest, zebra, and Thompson's gazelle can be found scattered across the vast grassland. Arrival to Siringit Serengeti Camp in the late afternoon.

Siringit Migration Camp

Nights: 2 Nights
Room Category: Ensuite tents
Includes: Breakfast, lunch, dinner, laundry, drinks
Excludes: Optional hot air balloon safari can be arranged with advanced reservation

Ndutu

Beneath the towering Ol Donyo Lengai volcano, a sea of grassland spans the horizon in every direction. These phosphorous rich grasses host a lesser-known but critical season of the Great Migration, the calving season. From December through March, two million wildebeest, Thompson's gazelles, and Grant's zebra make their way to the green grasses of Ndutu where the Ngorongoro Conservation Area connects with the Serengeti National Park and remain in the region for as long as the grazing supports their masses. With only one permanent lodge in the area, the majority of visitors use seasonal tented camps, which are assembled in December and remain until the start of the rainy season. An exploration of Ndutu during the calving season offers the unique opportunity to off-road game drive, being inside the Ngorongoro Conservation Area rather than the Serengeti National Park. This is one of the best places and times of year to observe cheetah in action as well as a staggering volume of life. In an event called irruptive birthing, the wildebeest give birth to over 400,000 calves in February with some early births in January and late ones in March. By synchronizing the births and flooding the grassland with wobbly newborns, each calf's chance of surviving to adulthood is optimized. This is a time when survival of the fittest is in full display as calves learn to sprint and mother wildebeest defend their newborns. With the influx of herbivores, there is also a larger population of big cats, allowing observation of their strength, speed, and stealth.

Day 8: Ndutu

Set out early on a full day game drive in Ndutu, with a picnic lunch in tow. Your guides will have the latest information on the whereabouts of the herds of grazing wildebeest, but today will be filled with opportunities for unexpected sightings. Cheetahs slinking through the grass, giraffe browsing on acacia woodlands, lions on honeymoon, or perhaps a family of bat eared foxes could also make an appearance.

Optional: Early morning hot air balloon ride at additional cost. You would connect with the group after a champagne breakfast in the bush to continue on safari or return to camp for a rest and set out to meet the group in the afternoon.

Day 9: Ndutu to Central Serengeti

Morning departure from camp, making your way on safari through Ndutu into the southern Serengeti. Your day is flexible to the opportunity for wildlife sightings as you continue north on exploration of the Serengeti National Park with a picnic lunch at a scenic spot along the way. Arrival in the late afternoon to Nimali Serengeti Camp.

Nimali Serengeti Camp

Nights: 2 Nights
Room Category: Ensuite Tent
Includes:Breakfast, lunch, dinner, drinks, laundry
Excludes:Optional hot air balloon ride can be organized with advanced reservation.

Central Serengeti

Arguably the most iconic wildlife sanctuary in the world, the Serengeti is a critically important ecosystem created by the Great Rift Valley's ancient volcanic activity that deposited a rich ash layer perfect for a thriving, expansive grassland that can sustain more megafauna per square foot than anywhere on the planet. The word Serengeti is derived from the Maasai word, siringet, meaning "endless plains," and this is a fitting title for an area that covers nearly 15,000 square kilometers (3.7 million acres). The Central Serengeti houses the highest volume of species diversity and resident fauna with sinuous rivers perfect for pods of hippos and elephants, leopard-filled woodlands, browsing giraffes across acacia forests, granite rock outcroppings called kopjes favorited by lions and rock hyrax, a staggering array of birds, and more. The Central Serengeti offers rewarding year-round, high-density game viewing.

Day 10: Central Serengeti

Enjoy a full day on safari with a picnic lunch in the Serengeti National Park with access to the central Seronera region, eastern plains favored by big cats, and the wooded Moru Kopjes where riverine wetland marries rolling forest. The full range of iconic safari species may be on display today.

Optional: Early morning hot air balloon ride at additional cost. You would connect with the group after a champagne breakfast in the bush to continue on safari or return to camp for a rest (perhaps a massage at extra charge) with lunch at the camp and set out to meet the group in the afternoon.

Serengeti to Kilimanjaro

Enjoy a final morning on safari with a game drive transfer to the Seronera Airstrip, where you will bid a fond farewell to your guides and depart for Arusha by light aircraft, flying over the Ngorongoro Crater and Great Rift Valley. The flight might
make one or more intermediary stops to pick up or drop other passengers. On arrival, meet and transfer from Arusha Airport to Arusha Coffee Lodge where you will enjoy a meal in the lush green gardens. After lunch you may have some time to visit Shanga, an uplifting local community social enterprise which employs people with disabilities to create unique handmade gifts. Relax in your day room at Arusha Coffee Lodge. Later, you are transferred from Arusha to Kilimanjaro Airport in time to check in for your return flight home.

Arusha Coffee Lodge

Nights: Day Room
Room Category: Plantation Cottage
Includes: Lunch
Excludes: Drinks, laundry