10 DAYS 9 NIGHTS TANZANIA WILDLIFE SAFARI TO NORTHERN CIRCUIT TANZANIA

Day 1: Arrival at Kilimanjaro Airport Arusha

International flight arrival at Kilimanjaro airport (JRO). Our driver will be waiting for you at the airport to welcome you and transfer you to Arusha for dinner and overnight stay on a half board basis.

Day 2: Mt Meru slopes – Arusha National Park – Walking safari & Game drive

After breakfast, our safari driver-guide will pick you from your accommodation and drive to Arusha National Park. After the gate procedures, you will continue driving till the ranger post. There you will be introduced to a ranger and proceed on foot for a walking safari inside the Arusha NP which will give the chance to experience the wildlife from close. On your way your guide will be showing you how to spot the footprints and other signs of the animals and talk to you about the wildlife and nature of Arusha National Park.

You will continue your walk till the waterfalls. Then you will meet again with your driver-guide to proceed to Ngurdo Crater. Buffaloes, waterbucks, giraffes, warthogs, zebras and baboons can be seen all year round as well as many different bird species. You will have a break for picnic lunch. In the afternoon you will drive back to your lodge. Evening at leisure, dinner and overnight stay on a full board basis.

Day 3: Arusha to Tarangire National Park

After breakfast, your safari guide will pick you at 08h00am from your lodge to proceed to Tarangire National Park. With a game viewing area that is roughly ten times the size of nearby Manyara.

The park is most famous for its elephant migration, birding and quiet authentic safari atmosphere in a unique surrounding of baobab trees. We will enjoy a game drive exploring the park. Lunch will be taken in a picnic site overlooking the Tarangire River.

Late afternoon we proceed to your accommodation in Manyara area. Evening at leisure, dinner and overnight stay on a full board basis.

Day 4: Lake Manyara National Park, Game Drive & Cultural Cycling or Village Walk

After breakfast, you will enter Lake Manyara National Park for game drives. The national park of Lake Manyara has a lovely environment; entering its main gate you pass through a lush evergreen forest created by groundwater that comes from the Ngorongoro Highlands. As you drive further on, you pass through dense acacia woodland offering an opportunity to watch impressive tusked elephants and big families of baboons. Around the lake there is a grassy floodplain dotted with large herds of buffalo, zebras, wildebeest and giraffes.

Lake Manyara is also one of the finest parks for bird-lovers - more than 380 species have been recorded - including pink-hued flamingos on their perpetual migration, as well as other large water birds such as pelicans, cormorants and storks. Abundant hippos bathe in the waters. The forest is a good home for leopard, whilst Manyara's lions are famous for their tree-climbing behavior (though not easy to be seen).

Break for lunch in a picnic site.  In the afternoon we will drive out of the park to meet with our local guide for a cultural walk at Mto wa Mbu Village.

After your cultural walk or cycling, you will meet with your driver-guide to transfer you to your lodge. Rest time, dinner and overnight stay on a full board basis.

Day 5: Visit the Maasai Village - Proceed to Southern Serengeti (Ndutu Region).

Early in the morning we will visit an authentic Maasai village close to Mto Wa Mbu. You will meet with a group of Maasai women and Morans who will talk to you about their beautiful culture and their traditions. Depending on their exact activities at the time of visiting you may partake to enchance further your visit (milking, cooking, bead works and more…).

After the visit to the Maasai village, You will continue with your safari towards the Ndutu area of Ngorongoro Conservations on the borders with Serengeti National Park. This is the ideal area for game drive from January to March, where is usually nestled the famous migration of the wildebeests and zebras.

The migration is the movement of vast numbers of the Serengeti's wildebeest, accompanied by large numbers of zebra, and smaller numbers of Grant's gazelle, Thompson's gazelle, eland and impala. These move in a clockwise circle and the animals cover a distance of around 3000km annually. They migrating throughout the year, constantly seeking fresh grazing and water. The precise timing of the Serengeti wildebeest migration is entirely dependent upon the rainfall patterns of each year. From December to March, the herds are grazing in the southern, east-central plains of the park and also the Ndutu area of Ngorongoro. End of January and February is the season that they are giving birth to their calves.

Our journey is intended to follow the migration, moving with the herds to experience their trials and tribulations. We have lunch in a picnic site. In the afternoon we proceed driving to our lodge, nestled on the rim of the crater. Leisure time enjoying the view from the lodge towards the crater floor, dinner and overnight stay on a full board basis.

Day 6: Ndutu to Serengeti National Park, Seronera

After breakfast we head to our exciting destination being a name familiar to everyone – the Great Serengeti. In the Maasai language, "serenget" means "endless plain". The park stretches for over 15,000 square kilometers. Serengeti National Park is quite simply the most magnificent wildlife sanctuary in the world unparalleled in natural beauty and wilderness. From vast, open plains casting idyllic, golden sunsets, to steamy riverbanks and towers of granite boulders, the Serengeti throbs with life in the endless rhythms of the animals.

We head to the central park area, known as the Seronera area, one of the richest wildlife habitats in the park, featuring the Seronera River, which provides a valuable water source to this area and therefore attracts wildlife well representative of most of the Serengeti’s species. We arrive in time for lunch and enjoy an afternoon game drive exploring the wildlife of Serengeti. At sunset we will proceed to our tented camp. Arrival for dinner and overnight stay on a full board basis.

Day 7: Full Day in Serengeti National Park – With Optiona Hot Air Balloon Safari

Early wake up call. After a cup of tea/coffee you will meet with your driver and board on a specialized vehicle with permit to drive at night. The Balloon Safari adventure starts early morning at about 5h00 am when you depart your lodge. It is still dark and you may be fortunate to see nocturnal animals on the way to the Launching site. When you arrive, you will meet your pilot and witness your balloon being inflated and prepared for launch. After a thorough safety briefing and demonstration of boarding and landing position you board your balloon and lift off! Rising as the sun rises your balloon floats in whatever direction the winds of the day are heading over this wonderful area. Your pilot will use varying altitudes and layers of air to navigate the balloon over this amazing area spotting the wild animals and enjoying the view around. We aim to fly for about an hour, depending on conditions. After landing, you celebrate in the traditional way with a champagne toast before heading off to a special breakfast in the bush under an acacia tree.

After your bush breakfast, your safari driver guide will pick you from your breakfast site to proceed with game drive in various areas of the park. The Serengeti eco-system is home to the "big five" (lion, African elephant, Cape buffalo, leopard, rhinoceros). The other main species include giraffe, zebra, antelope, Thompson’s and Grant’s gazelle, hippopotamus, crocodiles and in season the spectacular migration of the wildebeest.  Everywhere there are animals, vervet monkeys, olive baboons and a great variety of birds—with a total of 505 species being documented so far. But look closely and you will thrill to the huge jungle cats—lion, leopard and cheetah—just watching the world go by. And go by it does. Animals in the trees, on the wing, camouflaged in the bush, in rivers and in stream. The adventure of a lifetime!

You will have a break for picnic lunch. At sunset, return to your tented camp for dinner and overnight stay on a full board basis.

Day 8: Serengeti National Park - Ngorongoro Crater – Karatu

Early breakfast before leaving Serengeti towards Ngorongoro Conservations Area for game drive down the crater floor. We descend 2,000 feet to the crater floor to explore and observe an extraordinary variety of wildlife such as elephant, lion, leopard, hyena, zebra, wildebeest, Thomson's gazelle, reedbuck, buffalo including the endangered Black Rhinoceros.

With its abundant water, excellent grazing and natural protection from the densely vegetated crater walls, the crater provides shelter to over 25000 animals, Lunch will be served at a picnic site inside the crater.

In the afternoon we drive to our lodge/tented camp in Karatu Town. Evening at leisure, dinner and overnight stay on a full board basis.

Day 9: Karatu – Lake Eyasi – Karatu

At sunrise we drive to Lake Eyasi visiting local tribes. We will meet with our local guide to search for the bushmen. Our guide is very experienced and will interpret what we will get to see.

First, we will visit the Hadzabe tribe. The Hadzabe subsist entirely off the bush and by bow hunting. Everything they use is made from local materials, including their bows which are strung with giraffe tendon and their arrows which are coated in lethal poison. Their language resembles that of Kalahari Bushmen tribe (who were featured in the 1980 film ‘The Gods Must Be Crazy’) with clicking noises used. We will witness how the Hadzabe get ready for hunting for their daily meal and watch them preparing arrows using poison. Then we will take off all together for a hunt. They will also show us around where they live - they use caves as a home. We will see how they make fire, where they collect honey and teach us how they cure diseases preparing medicines of nature's gifts.

We will have a break for early lunch and rest out on the bush under the shade of a tree.

Then we will visit the Datoga tribe. The Datoga are mostly pastoralists and are used to biological food. They move from place to place to find good pastures for their animals. We will also visit the Datoga Blacksmith. He makes jewelry as well as weapons using a local method to melt iron. We will watch him making weapons - the Datoga use arrows, spears and knives.

After a great day with the tribes, we drive back to Karatu do leisure, dinner and overnight stay on a full board basis.

Day 10: Karatu – Transfer to Arusha/Kilimanjaro Airport

This is your last farewell day for your unforgettable safari to Tanzania where after breakfast our driver guide will pick you up from your lodge for driving back to Arusha / Kilimanjaro International Airport for catching your flight to Zanzibar or back home.