12-Day Tanzania Safari with Materuni Waterfall and Tribal Encounters

On arrival at Kilimanjaro International Airport, you will be picked up by our office representative/driver guide. After a short briefing, you will be transferred to the lodge for dinner and an overnight stay.

Have breakfast and collect the lunch box. Then, you will drive to Arusha National Park. This is a beautiful park with an awe-inspiring blend of vegetation, including swamps, grasslands, and the mountain slopes of Meru, which are swathed in tropical rainforests. It is a unique ecosystem that attracts thousands of animals and birds.

Dinner and overnight at a hotel/lodge.

Have breakfast and collect the lunch box. Then, depart for Materuni Waterfall and enjoy the spectacular view of the highest waterfall in the Moshi area. Spend 30 minutes at the natural pool with views of the stunning Mount Kilimanjaro. Please bring swimwear, appropriate footwear, towels, and outdoor wear.

Dinner and overnight at a hotel/lodge.

Have breakfast and collect the lunch box. Then, you will depart for Tarangire National Park. This park has a lot of migratory movement within the greater Tarangire ecosystem. The park runs along the Tarangire River and is mainly made up of low-lying hills on the great valley floor. Its natural vegetation mainly consists of Acacia woodland and giant African baobab trees, along with huge swamp areas.

Dinner and overnight at a hotel/lodge.

Have breakfast and collect the lunch box. Then, head to Soda Lake at the base of the active Ol Donyo Lengai volcano. The area around Lake Natron is often described as having a desolate and almost lunar beauty. Lake Natron is found in the northern part of Tanzania. The nearest towns to Lake Natron are Arusha in Tanzania and Magadi in Kenya. It is the most important breeding site for Lesser Flamingos in the world.

Dinner and overnight at a hotel/lodge.

Have breakfast and collect the lunch box. Then, you will depart for Lake Manyara National Park. This impressive park is one of Tanzania's most dramatically located wildlife areas. It is serene and beautiful, with the main attraction of tree-climbing lions, elephants, and hippos that you can see at a closer range than in most other places. Lake Manyara is an alkaline lake and, at certain times of the year, hosts thousands of flamingoes and a diversity of other bird life.

Dinner and overnight at a hotel/lodge.

Have breakfast and collect the lunch box. Then, head to Lake Eyasi, a seasonal shallow endorheic salt lake on the floor of the Great Rift Valley at the base of the Serengeti Plateau, just south of Serengeti National Park and immediately southwest of the Ngorongoro Crater in the Crater Highlands of Tanzania. The lake is elongated, oriented southwest to northeast, and lies in the Eyasi-Wembere branch of the Great Rift Valley. The Hadzabe bushmen live in this region, as do the Datoga and Mbulu tribes. A visit with the bushmen is worthwhile, and they will graciously show you where and how they live and hunt. They subsist entirely off the bush and by bow hunting. Everything they use is made from local materials, including their bows, which are strung with giraffe tendon, and their arrows, which are coated in lethal poison.

Dinner and overnight at Marera Valley Lodge or tented camp.

Have breakfast and collect the lunch box. Then, drive to Serengeti. From April to June, a vast army of wildebeest and zebra heads out from Central South Serengeti towards the Western Corridor with the intent to cross the less treacherous Grumeti River. Harassed from behind by lions, cheetahs, and hyenas, and ahead by giant Nile crocodiles, many hundreds perish as they hazard the river crossing. But the beauty of the landscape, stretching without end beneath an infinite sky on a Serengeti West Safari with AfricanMecca, changes something within the watcher, who becomes more aware of the place of humankind within the drama of the animal world. There is a sizable resident wildebeest population that does not migrate but remains here year-round. When the seasonal Mbalageti River runs dry, the Grumeti River retains pools that attract thousands of mammals. Buffalo and hippopotamus rarely stray far from water.

Dinner and overnight at a tented camp.

After breakfast and collecting lunch boxes, we will have a game drive in Serengeti National Park, the heart of wild Africa - the Serengeti National Park - with its endless plains rolling into the distance as far as the eye can see. We head to the central park area, known as the Seronera area, one of the richest wildlife habitats in the park, featuring the Seronera River, which provides a valuable water source to this area and therefore attracts wildlife well representative of most of the Serengeti's species. We arrive in time for lunch and enjoy an afternoon game drive in Serengeti National Park.

Dinner and overnight at a tented camp/hotel.

Breakfast. Then, take your lunch boxes and enjoy another full day in this wonderful park, rising early to make the most of our time. Our guides will choose the best spotting locations for the time of year. We can spend time at the Hippo Pool watching these majestic animals laze about in the cool water, happily living alongside the crocodiles, watching a big pride of lions, and being in the middle of the migration, sometimes surrounded by wildebeest and sometimes by zebras, which travel with the wildebeest.

Dinner and overnight at a tented camp/hotel.

After breakfast and collecting lunch boxes, we descend into this magnificent crater for a 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 rhinos. The Ngorongoro Crater is the world's biggest whole volcanic caldera at 8300 sq. km and is arguably the most stunning arena.

Dinner and overnight at hotel/lodge.

After breakfast at the hotel, you will prepare yourselves and then be transferred to the airport for your flight.