DAY 1 - ARUSHA – TARANGIRE PARK (150 KM 3 HRS.)
07:30: Your driver/guide will pick you up from your Arusha area hotel, airport, or Arusha area residence. Climb aboard your private 4 x 4 safari Jeep and we’ll head down the highway to Tarangire National Park. We will travel through the scenic Maasai country, with its microclimates and distinct vegetation.
Tarangire is a lovely park where the wildlife vastly outnumbers the tourists. You may feel as if you have the reserve’s over 3,000 elephants to yourself. Also look for lion and leopard here as well as zebra, wildebeest, gazelle, buffalo, and eland. You can’t miss the park’s unusual baobab trees with their immense trunks and short, busy branches reaching for the sky. Just another aspect that makes this reserve so special.
DAY 2: TARANGIRE PARK – NDUTU AREA (220 KM 6 HRS.)
From Tarangire, our 4 x 4 Jeep will take us to the Ndutu Area; along the way, we can stop at world-famous Olduvai Gorge. This immense ravine has revealed a vast trove of fossilized human remains and is an outstanding record of our ancient history and cultural development.
The Ndutu region is known as an ideal area to view the drama of the Great Wildebeest Migration. From December through March, you’ll witness the emotional calving season when up to 8,000 newborns drop onto these green fields. Later in the spring, as the herds mature you’ll see the great masses of grazers moving north into the Serengeti on their timeless trek for survival.
DAY 3: FULL DAY AT NDUTU AREA.
We’ll enjoy an entire day of unlimited game drives on the rolling grasslands and wooded acacia forests of Ndutu. Though this is a very active region during six months of the Great Migration (December – May) the Ndutu Area also features year-round resident wildlife that can be spotted at its many watering holes during the dry season.
Look for all the big cats – lion, leopard, cheetah, serval, caracal, and the African wildcat. Plus, there are plenty of elephants, giraffes, antelope, and hyenas roaming these fields. The area is also a very special spot for bird watching.
DAY 4: NDUTU AREA – SERENGETI (150 KM 3 HRS.)
Now it’s time to head north into the heart of the great Serengeti National Park. In contrast to the Ndutu Area, the Serengeti plains are almost treeless, stretching out to the deep horizon.
But these vast reaches are home to great numbers of wildlife – over 3,000 lions, 7,000 elephants, and more than 50,0000 buffalo. You will enjoy a great afternoon game drive in these plains.
DAY 5: FULL DAY AT SERENGETI PARK
As at the Ndutu Area, we are looking forward to an entire day of unlimited game drives. Just talk with your driver/guide as to what areas of the park you’d like to visit and how busy you wish to be.
With its rich ecosystem and abundant wildlife, the park is known as one of the “Seven Natural Wonders of Africa” You’ll soon experience this wonder as you discover all the big game – lions, elephants, giraffe, buffalo, wildebeest, zebra, and a startling canopy of over 500 bird species. We will also make small wildlife discoveries, coming upon smaller species like baboon, monkey, honey badger, and hopefully the rare African wild dog. We may even find hippos and crocodiles in the park’s unexpected rivers.
DAY 6: SERENGETI – NGORONGORO (160KM 3 HRS.)
Let’s enjoy an early morning game drive through the park with the lightly dappled sunlight playing upon the awaking African savannah. We’ll have breakfast and head for our final wildlife viewing experience, the Ngorongoro Crater. This vast geological structure is another of Africa’s natural wonders. It’s the largest intact volcanic caldera on the planet.
It is an immense ecosystem, virtually cut off from the rest of Africa that is home to over 25,000 animals. We are going to head down into the heart of this immense caldera to make our own discoveries.
We’ll descend the crater’s steep walls in our 4 x 4 Jeep, coming to rest in a verdant universe of teeming wildlife. All the big cats are here as well as elephants, zebra, giraffe, antelope, gazelle, black rhinos, and even pink flamingoes. Throughout the day, we’ll explore the crater’s grasslands, marches, and acacia forests, delighting in the numbers and variety of the wildlife thriving in this giant bowl.
We’ll enjoy a picnic lunch and continue our game drives through the afternoon, finally ascending the caldera walls in time to catch a blazing sunset up at the crater’s rim.
DAY 7: NGORONGORO – ARUSHA (261 KM APPX. 5 – 6 HRS.)
If we’re lucky (and get up early enough) we might catch a spectacular sunrise at the crater’s rim.
We’ll enjoy our final safari breakfast and point our 4 x 4 Jeep back to Arusha, making a lunch stop along the way.
