Tanzania Discovery Safari

This 7 day safari by road and air covers the highlights of Tanzania’s most popular parks and reserves including Lake Manyara, the World Heritage Site of Ngorongoro Crater and the unequalled Serengeti National Park – this is classic Africa at its best. Accommodation is in the high quality Lemala properties. The tour operates as a Private Departure.

Accommodation & Transport

Discover some of the best game-viewing areas in Tanzania in a comfortable 4×4 safari vehicle and escorted by an expert driver-guide. Starting in Arusha – after a night at the Hammerkop House by Lemala – we head to the beautiful Lake Manyara region for 1 night, then on to the Ngorongoro Conservation Area for 1 night and then to Serengeti for 3 nights. On the last day fly back to Arusha.

In Summary:

• Hammerkop House by Lemala (1 nights)
• Acacia Lodge (1 night)
• Lemala Ngorongoro Tented Camp (1 night)
• Lemala Ewanjan, Serengeti (3 nights)

Lake Manyara

With its sparkling soda lake, steep mountain scenery and dense woodlands Lake Manyara National Park offers a unique wilderness experience with varied terrain supporting diverse habitats.

The National Park was established to protect elephants and it now boasts a large population. The area is also famed for its unusual tree-climbing lions. There are also large herds of buffalo as well as cheetah, Masai giraffe and impala.

The lake shores can often be seen covered in large flocks of pink flamingos, and more than 400 other species of bird have been recorded here.

Ngorongoro Conservation Area

Ngorongoro Crater, one of the wonders of the natural world, is an extinct volcano that collapsed in on itself around 25 million years ago thus forming a vast superbowl where the largest permanent concentration of African game is on display. The central bowl – the caldera – has sides roughly 1,950 feet high and a flattish centre with a diameter of about ten miles. The views from the top of the crater wall are absolutely breathtaking. The crater walls are forested but four wheel drive vehicles will take you down into this primeval paradise of woodland, lake, river, swamp and plain that shelters around 20,000 animals. Many of these are the large grazing animals such as wildebeest, buffalo, gazelle and zebra who depend on the open grasslands in the crater. These attract the attendant predators, the black-maned lion, the leopard and hyena.

Elephants feed on the giant sedges and hippo wallow in the pools. The Fever Tree forests shelter monkeys, bushbuck and waterbuck and the few black rhino that have taken refuge here. A soda lake, fed by the Munge river attracts water birds, including flamingos and is a favourite place for predators to make their kill.

One of the most fascinating attractions in the area is the Olduvai Gorge, where an old river has carved away the rock to expose layer upon layer of volcanic soil.

Serengeti National Park

The vast 14,763 square kilometres of the Serengeti are renowned as being one of the world’s leading safari destinations

Every year the Great Migration of over 1.5 million animals, mostly wildebeest but also zebra and Thompson’s gazelle, moves through the western corridor on its 1000 kilometre journey to the fresh grazing of the Masai Mara. Predators pick off the weak and the young and crocodiles feast as the vast herd crosses the rivers. This is one of the earth’s great sights – but it is by no means all the Serengeti has to offer.

The vast, flat central plains, made fertile by the ashes of the ancient volcanoes of the Ngorongoro highlands, are places of huge skies, of shimmering heat hazes, yet also of delicate wild flowers blooming after the rains. The savannah, sprinkled with Acacia Tortilis, has majestic termite mounds and rock formations called kopjes which make great vantage points for predators. The lion are abundant, the leopard are plentiful (yet still secretive) and black rhino and cheetah both breed here.

There are more than 500 species of bird and, interestingly, 100 sub-species of dung beetle – a sign of a varied animal population! Ndutu, in the south, has small lakes where you may see hippo and water birds. Perhaps one of the best ways to see the Serengeti is a hot air balloon ride when, in the cool of the early morning, you may admire the grandeur, the vastness and the stunning landscape.