Day 1: Arusha
Arrival in Arusha where your driver-guide will meet you and transfer you to the hotel in Arusha, so you can rest from the flight and start your journey the next day without accumulated fatigue.
Day 2: Tarangire National Park
We head to Tarangire National Park, in our opinion an essential and must-visit park known as the garden of baobabs, those huge and ancient silent witnesses of the passage of time and history that offer us the African landscape par excellence. This impressive setting, together with the ecosystem marked by the Tarangire River, makes this great variety of landscapes genuinely African and gives it an atmosphere and flavour that other places lack. Tarangire is home to the highest concentration of animals outside the Serengeti ecosystem during the dry season. If there is one thing that stands out in Tarangire National Park, it is the large herds of elephants, so seeing a large group of elephants cooling off in the river will be an everyday scene on your safari. The gentle wooded plains lead to more lush vegetation on the banks of the Tarangire, with the combination of palm trees and baobabs being a great place to spot wildlife. In addition, being lowland and therefore warmer, it is possible to see lions resting in the branches of trees, which is rare in most of Africa, as well as giraffe, buffalo, leopard, cheetah, impala, zebra and other less common species such as the lesser kudu, oryx and even the sable antelope.
Day 3: Serengeti National Park
After enjoying this majestic park, we move on to the mythical Serengeti NP in Tanzania, a natural extension of the Masai Mara National Reserve in Kenya. There are no borders between the two countries in the reserves so they are ignored by the animals in their search for fresh pastures, crossing each year between July and October about a million and a half wildebeest, 250,000 zebras and half a million gazelles, followed in short order by lions and hyenas pleased with such a concentration of meat. These are the famous Migrations that deliver one of nature's most awe-inspiring spectacles.
Our tented staff will heat your water so that it is ready for you in your tent, complete with private bath and shower, on your return from safari and you can relax before a wonderful starlit dinner, all in true Memories of Africa style.
Day 4: Serengeti National Park
Second day at our Special Tented Camp in the middle of Seronera (Serengeti NP). The best safaris, or at least the best chance of witnessing hunting scenes, take place at dawn, when the savannah wakes up and the nocturnal animals are still active, and at dusk. We will dedicate these moments to meet the "big five": lions, buffaloes, elephants, rhinoceroses and leopards. In addition to these undisputed protagonists, large herds of herbivores are present throughout the year, always on the lookout for a cheetah or a pride of lionesses. We will sleep in the middle of one of the largest wildlife sanctuaries on the planet, we will sleep in the "endless plain". Its landscapes correspond to the mythical image of Africa: wide open spaces, deep blue skies dotted with clouds, cool sunrises and fiery sunsets, and at night, a unique display of stars. Optionally we can take a balloon safari over the Serengeti.
Day 5: Ngorongoro Conservation Area
We will spend the last morning in Serengeti tracking the wildlife that we may have heard close up the night before, and we will be keenly aware of another unique feature, the kopjes, islands of rocks in a sea of grass where lions and leopards love to rest. Shortly before leaving the endless plains behind, we will again meet Maasai shepherds with their herds and colourful "shuka" or Maasai blankets, grazing near the Olduvai Gorge, one of the cradles of humanity, where many fossils and artefacts of the first hominids have been found: we are already in the NGORONGORO CONSERVATION AREA.
We will visit a Boma Maasai or Maasai village to experience first hand their ancestral traditions and way of life in the Ngorongoro area, our next destination for tonight.
Our camp will provide you with spectacular views of the Ngorongoro Crater (we are the only Tented Camp that enjoys these views) and an authentic Maasai experience. To be able to socialise and enjoy a chat and a glass of wine around the camp fire with our Maasai who guard the camp is sure to become a memory for the rest of your life.
Day 6:
With the first rays of sunshine we drive in 4x4 vehicles down into the Ngorongoro Caldera for our game drive. No other reserve offers such a grandiose spectacle as the Ngorongoro Crater. A volcanic caldera 600 metres deep and over 20 kilometres in diameter, it contains the largest "permanent" concentration of wildlife in Africa. The Ngorongoro crater, a giant volcano that in its time was perhaps higher than Kilimanjaro itself, is home to thousands of wildebeest, zebra, buffalo, gazelles, lions, rhinoceroses... which, unlike in the Serengeti, practically do not migrate, due to the continuous presence of water in the area, which ensures their permanent sustenance.
The crater gives its name to the conservation area in which it is located: a spectacular landscape, inhabited by more than 40,000 Maasai pastoralists, dominated by the Rift Valley and the nine volcanoes of Ngorongoro that arose more than 4 million years ago. The only one that is currently active is Ol Doinyo Lengai, the mountain of god for the Maasai.
After our unique and exclusive experience inside the caldera of the so-called "volcano of Eden", we will drive to Arusha. Arrival and transfer to the airport (flight must be after 19.00 hrs).
Note: If this is not possible, an extra night will have to be added at the end of the programme. For flights after 13.00 hours, clients must contract day use of the hotel room.
