Tarangire, Ndutu, Central Serengeti & Ngorongoro Tour

07:30 Your driver/guide will pick you up from your Arusha area hotel, airport, or Arusha area residence.

Get on your safari Jeep and we’ll hit the road to Tarangire National Park.

We will travel through the scenic Maasai country, with its microclimates and distinct vegetation.

Tarangire is a lovely park where the wildlife vastly outnumbers the tourists. You may feel as if you have the reserve’s over 3,000 elephants to yourself. Also look for lion and leopard here as well as zebra, wildebeest, gazelle, buffalo, and eland.

You can’t miss the park’s unusual baobab trees with their immense trunks and short, busy branches reaching for the sky. Just another aspect that makes this reserve so special.

We’ll spend the evening at our Tarangire lodge or tented camp.

From Tarangire, our 4 x 4 Jeep will take us to the Ndutu Area; along the way, we can stop at world-famous Olduvai Gorge. This immense ravine has revealed a vast trove of fossilized human remains and is an outstanding record of our ancient history and cultural development.

The Ndutu region is known as an ideal area to view the drama of the Great Wildebeest Migration. From December through March, you’ll witness the emotional calving season when up to 8,000 newborns drop onto these green fields.

Later in the spring, as the herds mature you’ll see the great masses of grazers moving north into the Serengeti on their timeless trek for survival.

You’ll spend the first of two nights at your Ndutu Area accommodation.

We’ll enjoy an entire day of unlimited game drives on the rolling grasslands and wooded acacia forests of Ndutu.

Though this is a very active region during six months of the Great Migration (December – May) the Ndutu Area also features year-round resident wildlife that can be spotted at its many watering holes during the dry season.

Look for all the big cats – lion, leopard, cheetah, serval, caracal, and the African wildcat. Plus, there are plenty of elephants, giraffes, antelope, and hyenas roaming these fields.

The area is also a very special spot for bird watching.

We will spend our second evening at our Ndutu Area safari lodge or tented camp.

Another entire day of unlimited game drives on the rolling grasslands of Ndutu.

We’ll continue from where we left on the previous day; following up on the Big Cats and other mammals inclusive of the elephants, giraffes, antelope, and hyenas roaming these fields.

We will spend our second evening at our Ndutu Area safari lodge or tented camp.

Even during the dry season, you can expect to find plenty of wildlife in the Ndutu region, as many animals make this their home here year-round, especially in the forests.

Along with the big cats, we will be looking for elephants, giraffes, antelope, hyenas, monkeys, baboons, and a startling canopy of birdlife.

If you wish, we can leave our 4 x 4 Jeep for a guided walking safari and get a closer perspective on the land and its flora and fauna.

We will spend our second evening at our Ndutu Area safari lodge or tented camp.

Now it’s time to head north a 2 hrs. drive into the heart of the great Serengeti National Park. In contrast to the Ndutu Area, the Central Serengeti plains are almost treeless, stretching out to the deep horizon.

But these vast reaches are home to great numbers of wildlife – over 3,000 lions, 7,000 elephants, and more than 50, 000 buffalo.

Overnight

We’ll spend the first of two nights at our Serengeti lodge or tented camp.

As at the Ndutu Area, we are looking forward to an entire day of unlimited game drives. Just talk with your driver/guide as to what areas of the park you’d like to visit and how busy you wish to be.

With its rich ecosystem and abundant wildlife, the park is known as one of the “Seven Natural Wonders of Africa” You’ll soon experience this wonder as you discover all the big game – lions, elephants, giraffe, buffalo, wildebeest, zebra, and a startling canopy of over 500 bird species.

We will also make small wildlife discoveries, coming upon smaller species like baboon, monkey, honey badger, and hopefully the rare African wild dog.

We may even find hippos and crocodiles in the park’s unexpected rivers.

We will relax and enjoy our second evening at our Serengeti accommodation.

Let’s enjoy an early morning game drive through the park with the lightly dappled sunlight playing upon the awaking African savannah.

We’ll be on a 4-hour drive after breakfast, and head for our final game viewing experience, the Ngorongoro Crater for a half-day game drive. We’ll descend the crater’s steep walls in our 4 x 4 Jeep, coming to rest in a verdant universe of teeming wildlife. All the big cats are here as well as elephants, zebra, giraffe, antelope, gazelle, black rhinos, and even pink flamingoes.

Throughout the day, we’ll explore the crater’s grasslands, marches, and acacia forests, delighting in the numbers and variety of the wildlife thriving in this giant bowl.

We’ll enjoy a late afternoon picnic lunch and continue our game drives through the afternoon hours. At around 15:00pm / 03:00pm start ascending from crater, proceeding on a 4-hour drive back to Arusha, marking the end of our 8 days safari in Tanzania.