Marabou

A staff member of Jerry Tanzania Tours will pick you up from the Kilimanjaro International Airport (JRO). From here you will be driven to Gran Meliá Arusha in Arusha. Enjoy a restful night before beginning your adventure tomorrow!

Note: The hotel cost only includes breakfast. Check-in starts at 2:00 pm.

You'll depart from Gran Meliá Arusha after breakfast for the approximately two-hour journey to Tarangire National Park. Along the way, your eyes will be opened to all the colours and character of Tanzania: perhaps some Maasai herdsmen driving their flocks of goats to new pastures. You’ll get to know your driver-guide, amazed at his depth of knowledge as he effortlessly answers all your questions.

Once you've entered Tarangire, you'll begin your game drive across a rich vista of endless golden savannah that surrounds the Tarangire River. Tarangire is huge. As you stand at the park gate and look south, it stretches as far as the eye can see. Known as the ‘Elephant Playground,’ this spectacular park contains largest population of these mighty mammals. But Tarangire is also home to buffalo, lion, gnu, zebra and gazelle and the park can rival Serengeti for sheer animal densities. What might you see today? Perhaps a solitary male lion stretched out beneath a tree, perhaps a trio of male cheetah enjoying some lazy bonding-time in the sun. Maybe some graceful Grant’s gazelle or zebra bounding away from the road or a couple of giraffes munching happily from the choicest acacia branches. For Tarangire specialties, look out for kudu and oryx.

Here as in other parks, it pays not to ignore the small animals. It is so easy to be mesmerized by the power and majesty of an elephant or the elegance of the giraffe. Ask your guide to find you an agama lizard, especially a male one who changes colour in front of you according to the temperature! Or a hyrax, known as pimbi, an insignificant-looking creature of around 30 cm in length…who astonishingly is related to elephant!

Not many trees will pass you by without something of avian interest catching your eye. A memorable flash of colour might be a lilac-breasted roller or superb starling. Ostrich are plentiful and it is hard not to chuckle at the sighting of the well-named, studious-looking secretary bird as it awkwardly pads across the grasslands.

The park is also famous for its noble baobab trees, rolling savannah and acacia woodland. It can be dusty – wear a scarf over your mouth - but this is a minor inconvenience for sighting wildlife in such abundance. After an extensive game drive and a picnic lunch, you will leave the park to make your way to the hotel.

After an action-packed morning, you will journey on to Lake Eyasi. Everyone will have their own, favorite cultural experience today. But perhaps your lasting memory will be of the Hadzabe hunter-gatherers. Their lifestyle will make you ponder how uncomplicated – though not easy – life can be.

Lake Eyasi is located in the Great Rift Valley, southwest of the Ngorongoro Crater. Its salt-water levels experience dramatic changes with the seasons: in years with little rainfall, the lake can almost disappear. You will first experience a hunting trip with the Hadzabe, the last hunter-gatherers in Tanzania, before receiving a welcome from a different tribe, the colourful Datoga people. You will also see a local blacksmith practising his craft, fashioning pots and weapons from scrap metal.

In the afternoon you will have a break and driver will give you lunch-boxes. After this stop the safari will continue, and by evening you will be transferred to a hotel.

From your accommodation, you will set off after breakfast, a 6am departure to reach the rim and then descend into the vast crater itself. At one side there’s the Lerai Forest, classic mountain forest landscape with almost tropical characteristics. This is good elephant country, so keep your eyes peeled. By the side of the nearby swampland is what is sometimes called the ‘elephant graveyard’ as the mighty male tuskers at the end of their lives come to chew on the soft, swampland grasses once their teeth have failed them.

The crater has a population of around 120 lions, with well-defined territories; 15,000 gnu, 9,000 zebra, 400 hyenas, and around 50 black rhino. Many gnu and other herd animals are resident, benefiting from the many sources of year-round waters and are boosted by some migrators in season. Buffalo, Serval, Jackal, Thomson’s gazelle and eland are also present in numbers. Hippos can be found in pools and swampland and highland birdlife is colourful and plentiful around the waters. Flamingos can often be seen in Lake Magadi, which occupies part of the crater floor. After your morning game drive in this stunning crater and then lunch, you will have a 3 ½ hour journey, covering the 192 km back to Arusha.

On this day, you will have a leisure breakfast at the Gran Meliá Arusha and depending on your departure flight back home, you will be transferred to the Kilimanjaro International Airport.

Note: Hotel check-out is at 12:00 pm. In case you need a late check-out because of an evening flight, you have the option to extend your hotel stay till 6:00 pm for an extra fee.