Essence of Tanzania

Our style of travel throughout this safari is a well-equipped private mobile camp consisting of spacious en-suite tents with camp beds and all bedding provided. Our safari is fully backed up with a support vehicle and crew including a safari chef, waiter and tent attendant. Our back-up vehicle will usually go ahead to set up our evening camp, whilst we are game viewing. We stay in private camp sites within the national parks, ensuring an intimate safari experience. Meals are served in the large dining tent and evenings are typically spent seated around the campfire, under a starlit sky. After our welcome meeting, we depart for Tarangire National Park, defined by large open savannahs dotted with acacia woodland and large baobab trees. With the presence of the Tarangire River, this park forms a refuge during the dry season for many migratory animals, ensuring that Tarangire's wildlife concentration is second only to that of Ngorongoro Crater. We enjoy a picnic lunch at a picturesque view point overlooking the riverbed, where it’s not uncommon to see families of up to 300 elephants. In the afternoon we depart for Lake Manyara National Park where we are based for the next two nights.

Lake Manyara National Park lies at the foot of the Great Rift Valley escarpment and its defining feature is the picturesque soda lake which covers two-thirds of the park. With its incredible diversity of habitats, this small park is home to an impressive number of species including buffalo, waterbuck and hippo as well as boasting 380 bird species including pelicans and flamingos. The park’s greatest attraction, however, is the black-maned, tree-climbing lions for which it is renowned. Witnessing one of these elusive cats, as it languidly climbs the branches of the acacia tree, is sure to be a highlight of any safari. We spend a full day exploring the splendours of Lake Manyara before returning to our mobile camp in the evening.

The Masai are arguably the most famous of East Africa’s many tribes known for their proud culture, pastoral way of life and distinctive red dress. On a morning visit to a Masai village, we will gain insights into their customs and traditions. A picnic lunch is served enroute to our next destination, Lake Eyasi. Lake Eyasi, nestled between the northern Eyasi escarpment and the southern Kidero Mountains, is a starkly beautiful lake, in a little-visited region of northern Tanzania. Home to leopard, hippo and an astonishing variety of bird-life, the lake’s true appeal lies is in its unmatched tranquility. After a 2 hour dusty ride along unsealed roads, we are welcomed into camp, spectacularly set amid the acacia and doum palm forests of the northern lakeshore. This evening there is the opportunity to take in a glorious African sunset from the nearby hills. During our stay at Lake Eyasi, we are privileged to spend time with the Hadzabe community. The Hadzabe are a hunter-gatherer tribe, and are believed to have lived in this region for nearly 10,000 years, making them the oldest known tribe in East Africa. Their language resembles the click languages of the San (bushmen) of the Kalahari. The Hadzabe people rely solely on the bush for their provisions and we spend a fascinating day with them learning how they construct their homes, make their bows and arrows and their traditional jewellery. We may either join the men as they go out on a morning or afternoon hunt for food, or accompany the women, whose job it is to collect roots and berries from the surrounding forests, which are used for a range of traditional remedies as well as for food.

This morning we stop at nearby Oldeani village where we may have the change to visit a cultural boma of the Datoga people, another tribe of semi-nomadic pastoralists who inhabit northern Tanzania. Our journey continues north to Ngorongoro Conservation Area. For two nights, we depart from our private mobile camp and base ourselves at a permanent tented camp, set high along the Ngorongoro Crater ridge. The camp is intimate and eco-friendly and each spacious tent comes equipped with two beds, solar lighting and en-suite facilities. There is a large dining tent as well as a comfortable lounge area with a small reference library and bar. In the evenings, time is spent recounting the day's adventures around a typical safari campfire.

An early start sees us descend into the world-renowned Ngorongoro Crater, widely regarded as a microcosm of natural habitats in Africa and often touted as a veritable Garden of Eden. Within this crater lies every type of ecosystem, including riverine forests, open plains, freshwater and alkaline lakes. Ngorongoro Crater is the remnants of an ancient volcano caldera, and within its 300 square kilometres is a remarkable concentration of wildlife. The scenery is spectacular as we descend almost 600 metres down to the crater floor. There is every chance of seeing considerable quantities and varieties of wildlife in this compact area, including the highly endangered black rhinoceros. In the afternoon we return to our camp where the remainder of the day is free to relax.

Leaving Ngorongoro Conservation Area we travel on dusty roads toward the world famous Serengeti National Park. En-route we pause to visit Olduvai Gorge, an archeological site made famous by Dr Leakey in the 1950's where the fossilised remains of pre-historic man were discovered. The endless plains of the Serengeti are the essence of Africa, and are home to massive numbers of plains animals and attendant predators. The Serengeti provides some of the best wildlife viewing anywhere in the world, none more spectacular then watching the wildebeest and zebra complete their 'Great Migration'. Each year approximately 1.6 million wildebeest, accompanied by several hundred thousand zebras, traverse the grasslands of the Serengeti and the Masai Mara in Kenya in search of good grazing land and water sources, a process that continues throughout the year. Between December and May, wildebeest are scattered over the rich grasslands of the southern Serengeti and Ngorongoro Conservation Area. February is calving season which sees more than 8000 wildebeest calves born each day, whilst predators abound during this time. As the season changes, and the water sources dry up, the wildebeest begin to move toward the north and west in search of food. Travelling in thousands-strong herds, they move along several paths into the Western Corridor and toward the Grumeti River. During the dry season, from about mid-July through to October, the migration crosses into the Masai Mara in Kenya, which forms part of the same eco-system. The Mara River forms the natural boundary between Kenya and Tanzania and to witness the migration crossing this river is truly astonishing and a lifelong mission for some wildlife enthusiasts! Whilst we will be in the region as the herds gather to cross, the fact that they are wild animals means that no-one can ever predict precisely when the crossing will actually occur! As the season changes once more, the herds are again on the move south in anticipation of the rains to complete the cycle. Having our own private mobile camp gives us maximum flexibility in following the path of the migration in the Serengeti. Precisely where we set up camp depends primarily on the season and of course the density of game in the region, however as a guide we will generally camp in the following regions. January and February is spent in the Ndutu plains, in the southern area of the park close to Ngorongoro Conservation Area. March will either remain in Ndutu region or move to Moru Kopjes, also in the southern area. June and July will see us move into the west-central and western corridor regions of the park as the migration prepares to cross into Kenya. August and September is spent in the Northern Serengeti, while the remainder of the year we continue into the central / seronera region of the park and south to Ndutu once more. Of course, not all animals migrate and whilst we do aim to locate the migratory herds on this unique safari, we will certainly appreciate the abundance of wildlife including giraffe, elephant, rhinoceros and the huge population of predators such as lion, leopard and cheetah that populate the Serengeti year round.