As soon as you step out of Arusha International Airport terminal, you will be gritted by your guide and start your journey to your first safari in Tanzania: Lake Manyara Park.

Located beneath the cliffs of the Manyara Escarpment, on the edge of the Rift Valley, Lake Manyara National Park offers varied ecosystems, incredible bird life, and breathtaking views.

In contrast with the intimacy of the forest, is the grassy floodplain, across the alkaline lake, to the jagged blue volcanic peaks that rise from the endless Maasai Steppes. Large buffalo, wildebeest and zebra herds congregate on these grassy plains, and so do the giraffes.

Squadrons of banded mongoose dart between the acacias, whereas the diminutive Kirk’s dik-dik forages in their shade.

Manyara provides the perfect introduction to Tanzania’s birdlife. More than 400 species have been recorded, and any visitor to Africa might reasonably expect to observe 100 of these in one day. 

After breakfast you will be heading into the Tarangire National Park for a morning game drive. The park runs along the line of the Tarangire River and is mainly made up of low-lying hills on the Great Rift Valley floor. Its natural vegetation mainly consists of Acacia woodland and giant African Baobab trees, with huge swamp areas in the south. Both the river and the swamps act like a magnet for wild animals, during Tanzania’s dry season. In the afternoon you will eat your lunch at the picnic overlooking Tarangire River before you depart for Ngorongoro Conservation Area where you will overnight in a beautiful hotel.

Tarangire– This National Park enables you to experience an unrivalled landscape of open plains, dotted with thousands of baobabs. Not only does the meandering Tarangire River attract a vast number of wildlife, but the Park is also especially renowned for its huge elephant herds, enabling its visitors the spotting of entire thick-skinned families! 

Tarangire National Park has some of the highest population density of elephants as compared to anywhere in Tanzania, and its sparse vegetation, strewn with baobab and acacia trees, makes it a beautiful and distinctive location to visit. 

Before the rains, droves of gazelles, wildebeests, zebras, and giraffes migrate to Tarangire National Park’s scrub plains where the last grazing land still remains. 
Herds of up to 300 elephants scratch the dry river bed for underground streams, while migratory wildebeest, zebra, buffalo, impala, gazelle, hartebeest and eland crowd the shrinking lagoons.

The swamps, tinged green year round, are the focus for 550 bird varieties, the most breeding species in one habitat anywhere in the world. 
Disused termite mounds are often frequented by colonies of the endearing dwarf mongoose, and pairs of red-and-yellow barbet, which draw attention to themselves by their loud, clockwork-like duetting.

At the end of our visit we will drive to our lodge. 

After an adventurous one hour drive on dusty roads we will arrive to the northern shore of Lake Eyasi: a mildly alkaline lake which stretches some 50km across the south-western area of the Ngorongoro Crater.

The shores of Lake Eyasi are still inhabited by Hadzabe Bushmen: hunter gatherers, who can perhaps be considered one of the most interesting tribes in Tanzania and eastern Africa. Their language resembles the click languages of other bushmen further south, in the Kalahari and they are often willing to provide visitors with an insight into their simple bush homes, consisting in no more than a tree canopy or a cave. You will experience their everyday life at close range and be able to witness the tribe’s men skillfully hunt small antelopes and baboons with bows made from giraffe tendons and poison coated wood arrows.

After Lunch we will drive to visit another group of nomadic Bushmen: the Datoga Tribe. 

Datoga people are agro-pastoral nomadic, and nowadays they do some small blacksmith works, like jewelry and arrow-heads. They live in several areas in Tanzania, and the majority lives near Lake Eyasi. 

This tribe consider themselves the oldest tribe in Tanzania (the Maasai and Bushmen also claim this fame). The men of the tribe do the pastoral and blacksmith work, while the women cares for the children’s and home duties.

The married women are dressed with beautiful leather dress and have tattoos around their eyes for decoration. 

Serengeti National Park is the star of many nature documentary films. The great migration of the wildebeest brings thousands of tourists. 
Serengeti National Park is undoubtedly the best-known wildlife sanctuary in the world and it has the greatest concentration of plains game in Africa. 
Established in 1952, it is home to the great migration of wildebeest and zebra. The resident population of lion, cheetah, elephant, giraffe, and birds is also impressive. The Park can be divided into 3 sections:  

• The southern/central part (Seronera Valley) with it’s classic savannah, dotted with acacias and filled with wildlife.
• The western corridor is marked by the Grumeti River, and has more forests and dense bush.
• The north meets up with Kenya’s Maasai Mara Reserve, is the least visited section. 

It is the migration for which Serengeti is perhaps most famous – over a million wildebeest and about 200,000 zebras flow south from the northern hills to the Ndutu plains for the short rains every October and November, and then swirl west and north after the long rains in April, May and June.

During the months of July-September the herds will cross the Mara River again and again in search of fresh grass. They will have to face the mighty crocodiles in the river, which are waiting quietly in the water for their opportunity. 

Serengeti is also known as the “endless plains” in the Maasai language. This will be your area of exploration for the following two days. You will have the opportunity to discover this fascinating area and its wild inhabitants driving through the vast Serengeti Plains. 

This our last day of safari in we will start it early, after breakfast, to enjoy the morning hours with the waking herds. We will say our goodby to our guide and departure to Zanzibar.

For the next 2 nights you will enjoy the white beaches of the island, the blue-clear water of the ocean and the worm hospitality of the people of Zanzibar.  

After breakfast, take a last tour in Zanzibar a before heading to the airport for your flight back home.