5 Day Highlights of Tanzania Group and Camping Safari

This safari will take place in Lake Manyara National Park, Serengeti National Park, and Ngorngoro Conservation Area in Tanzania.

Lake Manyara National Park

Hemingway wrote about Lake Manyara National Park’s magnificent hunting country in “The Green Hills of Africa". There the mahogany, sausage tree, and croton are alive with blue monkeys and vervets. Elephants feed off the fallen fruit while bushbucks, waterbucks, baboons, the aardvark, civet, shy pangolin, leopard, as well as the black rhino all make their home in the forest.

Manyara is sanctuary to the elusive buffalo and hippo, the giraffe, impala, zebra, and the famous residents, the tree climbing lions. Lake Manyara itself is a magnet for birdlife and a kaleidoscope of different species can be found around its shores, including huge flocks of flamingos. The park is ideal for a day trip. A four-wheel drive is recommended during the rains. The dry season lasts from June to September and January to February.

Serengeti National Park

The Serengeti is one of the world’s last great wildlife refuge. The vast area of land supports the greatest remaining concentration of plains game in Africa. The name comes from the Maasai "siringet," meaning endless plains. Equal in size to Northern Ireland, the park contains an estimated three million large animals, most of which take part in a seasonal migration that is one of nature’s wonders.

The annual migration of more than one and a half million wildebeests, as well as hundreds of thousands of zebras and gazelles, is triggered by the rains. The wet season starts in November and lasts until about May. Generally, the herds congregate and move out at the end of May. Their movement is a continual search for grass and water. The moving mass of animals requires over 4,000 tons of grass each day.

The exodus coincides with the breeding season, which causes fights among the males. As the dry season sets in, the herds drift out of the west, one group to the north, and the other northeast heading for the permanent waters of the northern rivers and the Mara. The immigration instinct is so strong that animals die in the rivers as they dive from the banks into the raging waters, to be dispatched by crocodiles.

The survivors concentrate in Kenya’s Maasai Mara National Reserve until the grazing there is exhausted, when they turn south along the eastern and final stage of the migration route. Before the main exodus, the herds are a spectacular sight, massed in huge numbers with the weak and crippled at the tail end of the procession, followed by the patient, vigilant predators.

The vegetation in the Serengeti ranges from the short and long grass plains in the south, to the acacia savanna in the center and the wooded grassland concentrated around tributaries of the Grumeti and Mara rivers. The western corridor is a region of wooded highland and extensive plains reaching to the edge of Lake Victoria.

The Seronera Valley in the Serengeti is famous for the abundance of lions and leopards that can usually be seen quite easily. The adult male lions of the Serengeti have characteristic black manes.

Ngorongoro Conservation Area

The Ngorongoro Conservation Area is a huge area containing active volcanoes, mountains, archaeological sites, rolling plains, forests, lakes, dunes, and of course, Ngorongoro Crater and Olduvai Gorge. The views at the rim of Ngorongoro Crater are sensational. On the crater floor, grassland blends into swamps, lakes, rivers, woodland, and mountains, all a heaven for wildlife.

It includes the densest predator population in Africa. The crater is home to up to 25,000 large mammals, mainly grazers like the gazelle, buffalo, eland, hartebeest, and warthog. You will not find the giraffe as there is not much to eat at tree level, or topi, because the competition with the wildebeest is too fierce, nor will you find the impala. The crater elephants are strange, mainly bulls.

There are a small number of black rhinos there too. The birdlife is largely seasonal and is also affected by the ratio of soda to fresh water in Lake Magadi on the crater floor. In the northern, remote part of the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, you will find the Olmoti and Empakaai Craters, Lake Natron, and Ol Doinyo Lengai, mountain of god, as named by the Maasai.

Lake Natron is the only known breeding ground for East Africa’s flamingos. The ruins of a terraced stone city and complex irrigation system lie on the eastern side of Empakaai, the Engaruka Ruins. Their origins are a mystery as there is no tradition of stone building in that part of Africa.

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During this safari, your daily breakfast, lunch, and dinner will be provided for you in vegetarian and non-vegetarian meals.

• 4 nights accommodation
• Daily breakfast, lunch, and dinner
• Game drives as per the itinerary
• Road transportation in 4WD Land Cruiser safari vehicle
• Tents and other camping gears
• Park entrance and crater service fees
• Services of an English-speaking guide
• Airport transfers

• All international and local airfare
• Flight taxes
• Visa fees
• Travel, personal, and accident insurance
• Additional excursions
• Services and activities not mentioned in the program
• Personal expenses
• Laundry services
• Telephone bills
• Drinks
• Tips and gratuities

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• A reservation requires a deposit of 21% of the total price.
• The deposit is non-refundable, if the booking is cancelled.
• The rest of the payment should be paid on arrival.