After your long flight, you will be pleased to discover that Arusha – the undisputed ‘safari capital’ of East Africa- is perched at 1400 meters above sea level, keeping the temperatures and humidity relatively low. All around this important city are some of Tanzania’s greatest delights. Mount Meru towers above Arusha, while even distant Kilimanjaro can be seen on a clear day. Arusha provides the ideal starting-point for safari-lovers, within reach of Serengeti and Ngorongoro Crater.

Today, your safari really begins as we start early from your Arusha hotel for our pleasant drive westwards to Lake Manyara National Park. First of all, we enjoy this morning with an introduction to northern Tanzanian culture, taking a visit to fascinating Mto wa Mbu village. Incredibly, this ‘village’ is actually home to over eighteen thousand inhabitants, drawn from 120 different tribes. Today is a superb opportunity to find out about their everyday lives, visiting their farms, huts, artisan shops and the local market, with your expert driver-guide taking good care of you and sharing his detailed knowledge of tribal culture.

After breakfast, we collect our lunch boxes and leave Lake Manyara National Park. Our journey takes us west and north, our exciting destination being a name familiar to everyone – the Serengeti! Along the way, the sheer scale of the territory and the raw beauty of the landscapes reveal themselves and your driver-guide will help you to spot animals and birds. This is just a preview of things to come, for the Serengeti is home to what is possibly the world’s greatest gathering of wildlife.

It’s almost impossible to spend too much time in Serengeti and with more than 1.6 million herbivores – plus thousands of predators – there’s always something new and interesting to see. The changing seasons and natural light simply add to the diversity. This morning your driver-guide will help you spot some more of the many species at Serengeti, teaching you about their fascinating habits and habitats.

First, there’s the volcanic caldera (the world’s largest), full of grassland, forest and swamp, a setting of jaw-dropping beauty. Secondly, the permanent water of the crater floor supports a resident population of more than 25,000 large mammals. Here you’ll find many of the reasons you chose to come on safari: elephant, lion, leopard, hyena, jackal, wallowing hippo, waterbuck, baboons… even the rare black rhino finds shelter here.
Sharing this awesome space with the animals are the Maasai, grazing their cattle in an area which has been a separate conservation area since 1956 and a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1978. This harmonious co-habitation of man and beast makes Ngorongoro unique in Tanzania and your driver guide will be pleased to explain this incredible co-existence to you.