Lake Manyara, Ngorongoro & Tarangire

Meet our professional tour guide/driver in Arusha town, who will deliver a short safari info briefing, after which we travel to Lake Manyara National Park. We arrive in time for lunch at the lodge. After lunch we head into the park itself. This impressive park is one of Tanzania's most dramatically located wildlife areas, consisting of a massive but shallow soda lake (covering two-thirds of the park) at the foot of the Great Rift Valley's western escarpment. The park's varied habitat attracts a wide variety of animals, including one of Africa's largest concentrations of elephants, Manyara's famous tree-climbing lions, as well as large flocks of flamingos attracted by the algae in the lake.

After breakfast we descend 600m into this magnificent crater for a morning, half-day game drive. The Ngorongoro Crater is one of the most densely crowded African wildlife areas in the world and is home to an estimated 30,000 animals including some of Tanzania's last remaining Black Rhino. Supported by a year-round water supply and fodder, the Ngorongoro Crater supports a vast variety of animals, including herds of wildebeest, zebra, buffalo, eland, warthog, hippo and giant African elephants. Another big draw card to this picturesque national park is its dense population of predators, which include lions, hyenas, jackals, cheetahs and the ever-elusive leopard, which sometimes requires a trained eye to spot. We will enjoy a picnic lunch in the crater, after which we travel to Tarangire National Park.

After breakfast we head into 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. Tarangire National Park is reputed to contain some of the largest elephant herds in Africa, and is also home to three rare species of animals — the Greater Kudu, the Fringed-eared Oryx, as well as a few Ashy Starlings. We return to the lodge for lunch, after which we depart for Arusha town.