Beyond the Mainstream

Your driver-guide meets you in the arrivals hall at Kilimanjaro International Airport, holding a board with your name. On the way to the car they will run through the plan for the next five days and answer any questions.

The drive west to Arusha takes about an hour. The town sits at the foot of Mount Meru, Tanzania’s second-highest mountain, and it is the starting point for almost every northern safari. Check in, have a swim or a nap, and get an early night.

The road to the Serengeti climbs over the rim of the Ngorongoro Crater, then drops down through Maasai grazing land and out onto the short-grass plains. The drive takes about four hours and the game viewing starts before you reach the gate: gazelles, zebras and ostriches are common beside the road.

After a picnic lunch at Naabi Hill, the park’s main gate, you head for the Seronera Valley in the middle of the park. The river here keeps water all year, so lions, leopards and hyenas stay too. Your guide will check the sausage trees for leopards and the rocky kopjes for lions before you reach camp at dusk.

It is only about 30 minutes down the escarpment to Lake Manyara National Park. The first part of the park is a green groundwater forest full of baboons and blue monkeys, then it opens out to grassland along the lake shore.

Look for elephants in the forest, hippos in the pool near the lake and, when the water level suits them, flamingos and pelicans on the lake. Manyara’s lions sometimes rest up in the acacia trees, so your guide will check the branches as well as the ground. After a picnic lunch you drive about three hours back to Arusha, where the tour ends.