Day 1: Arusha
Flight to Arusha where your driver-guide will pick you up and transport to the hotel where you will rest to start fresh the safari on day 2.
Day 2: Tarangire National Park
We go to the Tarangire National Park, a must do known as the Baobabs' garden. The ecosystem created by the Tarangire River makes great variety of genuinely African scenery and an atmosphere and taste that another places lack. The Tarangire hosts during the dry season the highest concentration of animals outside the Serengeti ecosystem. If anything stands out in Tarangire National Park they are large herds of elephants, usually cooling off in the river.
The mix vegetation of palm trees and baobab along the Tarangire Riverbanks is very characteristic and is where the majority of the animals are seen. In addition, being lowlands and therefore hotter, it is possible to see lions, giraffes, buffalo, leopards, cheetahs, impalas, zebras and other species not so common as the minor kudu, the orix or even the sable antelope. In Tarangire National Park you can do fly camping as optional experience, a modality of accommodation that will let you discover the essence of the old-style safaris, guarded by a giant Baobab and by the ranger of the tented camp. A mosquito net on the highest hill of the Tarangire will be the only thing that separates you from the African magic.
Day 3: Lake Manyara National Park
After enjoying this majestic park, we continue on the Maasai Lands, tribes of nomadic shepherds. The Maasai have inhabited these lands since thousands of years and are still following their traditions. We direct our steps towards one of Tanzania's most unique gems, Lake Manyara National Park. A small park of only 330 square kilometers of which 200 occupied by the lake. Lake Manyara stretches over 50 kilometers undergoing dramatic transformations throughout the year. Its physiognomy changes completely from the rainy season to the dry season. Its fauna includes large mammals (giraffes, leopards, lions, hippos) and more than 400 species of birds including a huge population of flamingos on the lake. During the dry season, from June to December, the level of the lake falls significantly, and large mammals need to get closer to the water. Then it is more frequent to see the owners of the place: the elephants, lions and leopards lurking to the buffalo and giraffes that come to drink to the lake. The hunts are assured.
Note.- The safari in Manyara can be done on the afternoon of day 3 or in the morning of day 4.
Day 4: Serengeti National Park
We said goodbye to Lake Manyara after a safari at dawn and headed towards the mythical Serengeti NP, the natural prolongation of the Masai Mara National Reserve in Kenya. Is between Maasai Mara and Serengeti that each year, between July and October about a million and a half wildebeest, 250,000 zebras and half a million gazelles, followed in Short by lions and hyenas pleased by such concentration of flesh, create what is called 'The Big Migration', one of the most breathtaking shows of nature. In the tented camp, our staff will warm the water for your private bath and shower, so that at the end of the Game drive, you can relax before a wonderful dinner under the stars.
Day 5: Serengeti National Park
Second day at our Special Tented Camp in the middle of Seronera (Serengeti NP). The best safaris, or at least the most likely to witness hunting scenes, take place at dawn, when the nocturnal animals are still active, and at dusk. We will dedicate these moments to meeting the "big five": lion, buffalo, elephant, rhino and leopard. In addition to these indisputable protagonists, we will see large herds of herbivores. We will sleep in one of the largest wildlife sanctuaries on the planet, the "endless plain". Its landscapes is the one that everybody dreams when thinking about Africa: large spaces, deep blue skies sprinkled with clouds, fresh sunrises and sunsets of fire, and at night, a unique display of stars.
Day 6: Ngorongoro Conservation Area
Game drive at dawn on the way to the Ngorongoro Conservation Area. We will carefully visit another singularity of the Serengeti, the Kopjes, islands of rocks in a sea of grass where lions, leopards and cheetahs love to rest. Leaving behind the endless plain and if time allows, we will optionally visit the Olduvai Gorge, where many fossils and artifacts of early hominids have been found. It's part of the Serengeti and borders the Ngorongoro Conservation Area. We will visit a Maasai Boma (Maasai Village) to experience its ancestral traditions on the way to our next destination for tonight.
Our camp is just on the rim of the crater, offering a spectacular view over the area.
Pakulala Safari Camp is the only tented camp in the world located above Ngorongoro´s crater. East Africa Camps offer a unique experience in an exclusive location with spectacular views. This exclusive location continues developing our sustainable and responsible philosophy focused on the direct repercussion in the local economy of Masai life that inhabits the Crater in coexistence and respect with the fauna and flora that lives there. Every East Africa Camps traveler who sleeps at PAKULALA SAFARI CAMP contributes directly to this magical symbiosis that happens between tourism, the Masai life, wildlife and their safaris, we are very proud of it.
Day 7: Lake Eyasi
At sunrise, we get into 4x4 vehicles inside the Ngorongoro Crater for our game drive. No reserve offers such a magnificent show as the Ngorongoro Crater. A volcanic caldera of 600 meters of depth and more than 20 kilometers in diameter contains the highest permanent concentration of African wildlife. Spectacular scenery, inhabited by more than 40,000 Masais shepherds, dominated by the Rift Valley and the nine volcanoes more than 4 million years old. The only volcano currently active is the Oldoinyo Lengai, the Maasai God's Mountain. The Ngorongoro crater, grazes thousands of wildebeests, zebras, buffalo, gazelles, lions ... which, unlike the Serengeti, do not migrate because of the continuous presence of water. After our unique and exclusive experience inside the caldera of the so-called volcano of Eden, we direct our steps to the Lake Eyasi. Untouched by other routes, if there is a place where it seems that time has stopped and civilization has not yet arrived, no doubt that is the land of the Datoga And Hadsabe tribes or the land of the Bushmen. A small and remote place where they still live from the little hunting and the harvesting of wild fruits and roots.
Day 8:
Very early in the morning, walking among acacias and majestic baobabs, we will be surprised by these tribes dressed in small tanned skins and necklaces made of fruits and seeds observing us with sincere curiosity. It is the Bushmen who receive us with his unique language, clicking the tongue. Go hunting with the Hadsabe is an experience. We will walk with them in the savanna that surrounds Lake Eyasi to know firsthand what is survival.
Transfer to the airport on the same day only for flights starting from 7 pm.
For flights with departure earlier than 7 pm it is mandatory to book an extra night in Arusha.
Note. The order of the safari itinerary can change according to the hotel availability, maintaining always the same activities.
