Leopard Tour & Big 5 Photo safari

After breakfast, we will drive to Lake Manyara National Park for a game drive and have a picnic lunch. While Manyara is one of the smallest parks, it is one of the most interesting.  Much of the northern part of the park is fed by underground water from the Ngorongoro Highlands and as a result is covered in dense forest vegetation, giving the appearance of a tropical jungle. This forest is ideal habitat for elephant, bushbuck, blue monkey, and huge troops of olive baboon. Some parts are dry bush land attracting zebra, impala and giraffe, while the lakeshore provides another habitat, perfect for flamingos and other shore birds. Our game drive will take us slowly south through the park and later in the afternoon proceed to Tloma Mountain Lodge.  We will have dinner and stay the night at the lodge.

Dinner and overnight at Tloma Mountain Lodge or similar 

After breakfast at the lodge, you will drive to the Ndutu area of the Serengeti.  We will ascend through an extensive and rich agricultural area between Lake Manyara and the Ngorongoro Crater rim and then we enter the Ngorongoro Conservation Area. The main route to the Serengeti (a lovely dirt road) passes alongside the Crater rim for our first view down to the Crater floor. From a good viewpoint overlooking this ecosystem 2000 feet below, a small speck is perhaps an elephant and the pink hue on the alkaline lake most certainly flamingos. We then cross over from the highlands down to the short grass plains. From there, we drive slowly over the Serengeti plains to Olduvai Gorge on the eastern boundary of the Serengeti Ecological Unit. Here the Leakey’s found the hominid remains Australopithecus, Homo habilis and Homo erectus, plus many other fossils exhibited in the excellent, small museum at Olduvai. Then we are off across the Serengeti plains to Ndutu.  There will be many chances to spot the resident mammals and birds of the area.  We may find spotted hyenas, golden and silver-backed jackals, kori bustards, and gazelles.

At the end of the journey across the plains, we arrive at the Serengeti Savannah Camp – your home for the next 4 days.  The camp is located in an area of the bush where you can experience living in the wild of Africa.  This is not camping in tents and sleeping bags and eating canned food.  This is a luxurious tented camp. The spacious verandah in front of your room is furnished with comfortable safari chairs and tables - the perfect retreat for a relaxing moment watching a weaver bird building its nest in a nearby Acacia tree, a herd of impala grazing quietly only meters away, or simply relaxing and listening to the sounds of the African bush. Your bathroom is complete with a dressing table and is fully plumbed with washbasin, lavatory and showers – a new and often surprising interpretation of ‘camping’. Hot water is available throughout the day and evening.  Your butler will see that your laundry is done, your morning tea is waiting, and the water for your shower is ready.

Each day we will head for the plains at dawn taking hot, coffee, tea and muffins to have for breakfast later in the morning on the Serengeti plains. We'll search for bat-eared fox and cheetah out hunting and possibly honey badger still foraging.  As the mornings are very cool at this season the nocturnal mammals are sometimes still active.  We may even spot African wild cat, though it is extremely shy. The Ndutu is an excellent area for cheetah, which feed mainly on gazelles and hares. Grant's gazelles stay year around while Thomson's gazelle is the last in the migration.  During this time of the year we will see a lot of wildebeest and zebra as they all congregate where the grass is very nutritional.

Dinner and overnight Serengeti Savannah Camp

Today we will leave very early in the morning (after a very early breakfast) and drive to the floor of the Ngorongoro Crater.  There we will have a full day game drive, as we will be carrying our picnic lunch with us.  The Crater is wonderful place - you descend more than 2,000 feet on steep tracks cut into the crater wall to reach the open plains of the Crater floor. The Ngorongoro Crater is undoubtedly the best place in Tanzania to view black rhino as well as large prides of lion that include magnificent black-manned males. It is also home to huge herds of wildebeest and zebra and many other plains game.  An alkaline lake in the floor of the Crater provides a habitat for colorful flamingo and a variety of other water birds. Massive bull elephants feed in the swamps, some adorned with enormous tusks.  We will have our picnic lunch at the hippo pool and later in the afternoon drive to the Ngorongoro Sopa Lodge for dinner and rooms for the night.

Today you will have a leisurely breakfast and then start the drive to Arusha through the Great Rift Valley, close to Lake Manyara and arrive in Arusha in time for lunch as your Leopard Tour & Big 5 Photographic Safari comes to a close.  After lunch there will be time for shopping before the trip to the airport for your departure.