2 Weeks Tanzania Safari “Tanzanian Tapestry” 2 Week Tanzania Safari Tour

“Tanzanian Tapestry” From $15,644.00 Per Person

Price excludes International Airfare

DURATION: 15 DAYS / 14 NIGHTS WHERE: ARUSHA, KATAVI NATIONAL PARK, MAHALE MOUNTAINS PARK, RUAHA NATIONAL PARK DAY 1: ARUSHA TOWN – TANZANIA

Arusha is the largest city in northern Tanzania and known as the “Gateway” to the northern safari and wildlife circuit. It’s a sprawling metropolis: noisy, chaotic, colourful and with a charm all its own. Many safari-goers opt to pass straight by Arusha, but often an overnight is required in one of the many lodges and camps within and on the outskirts of the city. It’s surrounded by some of Africa’s most famous landscapes and national parks and is situated in the foothills of Mt Meru giving it a cooler, more temperate climate. Originally a garrison town, it was founded by German colonialists when the territory was part of German East Africa in the 1900s. The name Arusha comes from the local tribe Wa- Arusha.

It’s regarded as the de facto capital of the East African Community, and houses the International War Crimes Tribunal for Rwanda. It’s a multicultural city with a majority Tanzanian population of mixed backgrounds and tribes, a large Muslim and Indian- Tanzanian population and a large population of expatriates from around the world. It’s a buzzing city with colourful markets, vibrant streets and a great many choices of places to eat and drink, always with the backdrop of Mt Meru rising imposingly from the clouds. The Arusha domestic airport is found here, on the outskirts of town on the road towards Tarangire, the Ngorongoro Crater Area and the Serengeti. This is not to be confused with the Kilimanjaro International Airport, which is an approximately 90- minute drive away, towards Mt Kilimanjaro.

ARUSHA COFFEE LODGE Accommodation in Standard Room – Includes Breakfast and Dinner

Something of a stalwart in the Arusha hotel scene, Arusha Coffee Lodge is in a great location on the outskirts of town and close to the main Arusha domestic airport. It’s a convenient 5-minute drive away and especially handy for those early morning flights into the bush.

Set in a working coffee plantation dating back to the early 1900’s, it has 30 “Plantation Houses” inclusive of 12 Suites, all of which sit right in the middle of the coffee itself. The rooms are smart and stylish, with log-fireplaces and en-suite bathrooms. The main building is imposing but homely: wood floors throughout, a roaring fire, big comfortable sofas and chairs and a selection of dining areas with a bar tucked away at the end. They serve a wide variety of food and have a buffet as well as an a la carte menu.

The garden, where most people congregate for meals and sundowners, has shady tables and a secluded swimming pool if you fancy a dip. If you’re interested to know more about coffee growing, they’ll take you on a 2-hour tour to see the inner workings of the plantation: see how the coffee is grown, harvested, dried and turned into the coffee they serve daily at the lodge.

DAY 2: SERENGETI NATIONAL PARK – TANZANIA

The Serengeti National Park is one of the most famous wildlife areas in the world and the home to the annual wildebeest migration. It covers 14,750 km2 of grassland plains, open savannah, riverine forests and woodlands; it stretches from the town of Arusha, north to Kenya and west to Lake Victoria. It lies in the north of Tanzania, bordered by Kenya and the Maasai Mara National Reserve, the Ngorongoro Crater Area to the southeast, the Maswa Game Reserve to the south west and the Loliondo Private Concession area to the east. Together, all these areas form the larger Serengeti ecosystem.

SERENGETI SAFARI CAMP Accommodation in Standard Tent – Includes All meals, house drinks, laundry and shared game drives. Excludes premium brand drinks, private guide/vehicle (available at an extra supplement)

Our Serengeti Safari Camp was the first of its kind. It was designed with a purpose in mind; to be in the best possible location to view the wildebeest migration as it covers hundreds of miles of the Serengeti National Park each year. So it should come as no surprise that it really hasn’t changed much since its early pioneering days. Each year, the camp casts off from Lamai Serengeti and begins its own odyssey. Covering hundreds of miles and moving every couple of months along a route that the herds have travelled for hundreds of years, Serengeti Safari Camp is where you come for your migration fix. We understand well the Serengeti seasons and game movements, and how best to mirror them in this little nomadic camp. Serengeti Safari Camp has just six large walk-in meru tents, with a dressing area and then an en-suite bathroom at the rear. New eco-flush toilets and safari-style bucket showers are part of every tent, as well as jugs of hot and cold water delivered as and when you’d like them. The main dining tent sits in the middle of the line of tents, with the fireplace right in front and a separate library/bar tent nearby.

DAY 3-4: SERENGETI NATIONAL PARK – TANZANIA

Enjoy Scheduled game activities

DAY 5: KATAVI NATIONAL PARK – TANZANIA

Katavi National Park in the far west of Tanzania is somewhere that, even today, few people have been lucky enough to visit. Perhaps because of this, it feels untouched, almost like travelling back in time. The park centers on a series of wide flood plains, blond with waist high grass in the early dry season, green and flooded like a mini Okavango Delta after the rains. Connecting the main flood plains – Ngolema, Katisunga, Katavi and Chada – is a network of fragile seasonal rivers. It is these rivers that form the focus of the game viewing for which Katavi is renowned during the dry season.

Water rapidly becomes a limited resource in Katavi during the dry so animals of all kinds are drawn to the Katuma, Kavu and Kapapa Rivers. Hippo in their thousands cram the remaining pools, crocodiles retire to caves in the mud walls of the river banks, buffalo and elephant are drawn to the rivers to drink. The lion, hyenas and other predators know this. In the late dry season, there are few places that offer such a raw and wild experience as Katavi.

The rains usually come mid November and go through until early June. Katavi then undergoes a complete transformation. Almost as soon as the first rains hit the ground, everything goes green; long green and lush grasses sprout from what was just dry and cracked earth. The rivers flow again, the pools overflow and there is space for all. It’s a birders paradise as all the migratory birds flock back. Grass as high as an elephant’s eye, but there is still so much to see.

CHADA KATAVI LODGE Accommodation in Standard Tent – Includes All meals, house drinks, laundry and activities (shared game drives and walks) and one night game drive. Excludes non-house drinks, fly camping (supplement applies, must be prebooked); private use of vehicle (available at a supplement subject to availability and must be prebooked)

Little has changed at Chada Katavi since we arrived 20 years ago. From the air, you have to look carefully to spot the camp and you’ll find your eyes are immediately drawn to such wide open spaces and less to the detail; that’s the promise of Katavi, total absorption into the natural world. Chada Katavi is stylish and wonderfully comfortable, but we share all the resources here with Katavi’s animals and so we’ve ensured that our footprint remains light. Photo Courtesy of Chada Katavi

There are just six tents, raised up on wooden platforms on the edge of the Chada Plain. They have wide-open fronts and lots of shade net windows to let in the passing breeze. The en-suite bathrooms are at the side, also on platforms, and have eco-flush loos and an urn of cool water to refresh yourself. Safari style bucket showers are the best thing here, tried and tested and we can think of no better way to wash off the Katavi dust under one of these. The game is everywhere in Katavi. So much so in fact, that you often don’t have to leave your tent veranda to see all kinds. Elephant are frequent visitors, attracted to the same shady fruit trees as us, and vast herds of buffalo graze on the flood plain, sometimes right in front of camp.

DAY 6-7-8: KATAVI NATIONAL PARK – TANZANIA

Enjoy scheduled game activities.

DAY 9: MAHALE MOUNTAINS PARK – TANZANIA

The Mahale Mountains National Park is in the far west of Tanzania, on the shores of Lake Tanganyika. Named after the Mahale Mountains range that runs through it, it is one of the only places left in the world where you can see chimpanzees in the wild and spend time with a small group – the M Group – who are semi-habituated. It is believed that Stanley uttered his immortal greeting “Dr Livingstone, I presume”, only 128 kms (80 miles) north of this area.

In the 1,613 square kms of the Mahale Mountains, there are still no roads and all you will find are forest paths and tracks made by animals over the years. This, and the fact that the only practical way of reaching camp is by boat, add to the sense of seclusion here. Flying in over the northern end of the mountains, you’ll see nothing for many many miles and only small villages and local fishermen in dhows dotted along the lake shore. The park is home to some of the Africa’s last remaining wild chimpanzees; apopulation of roughly 800 (some 60 individual forming the ‘‘M group”) habituated to human visitors by Japanese researchers from Kyoto University in the 1960s.

Mahale’s mountain ridge is around 50 km in length and runs across the park from the northwest to the southeast. Its tallest peak, Mt Nkungwe at 2462m, is the highest point on Lake Tanganyika’s shoreline. The mountains of the Congo, on the opposite side of the lake, can sometimes be seen – some 60kms away – usually during the green season when the air is clear.

GREYSTOKE MAHALE CAMP Accommodation in Standard Tent – Includes all meals and house drinks, laundry, 1 x chimp trek per full day, snorkelling, forest walks, 1 x fishing trip per stay and boat trips. Excludes non-house drinks, additional fishing trips

Greystoke Mahale sits on a pristine, white sandy beach overlooking the turquoise water of Lake Tanganyika in far-flung western Tanzania. The forested slopes of the 8000 ft Mahale Mountains range rise behind and, across the water, you can often see the mountains of the Congo, some 60kms away. The camp has just six wood and thatch bandas set on the edge of the forest line at the base of the mountains. Each one has an en-suite bathroom – accessible by a short boardwalk – with hot and cold running water, strong showers and flush toilets, dressing room and upstairs chill-out deck. Dine in the main mess banda on the beach and enjoy sundowners in the bar on the rocks at the end of the beach. The main mess is the only structure on the beach and it’s the focal point of camp.

Your days can start there, eating breakfast whilst waiting to hear news of the whereabouts of the chimps and deciding what to do with your day. There are many choices as well as the chimp trekking: fishing, boat trips down the lake, gentle forest walks or a lazy afternoon on the beach. Evenings end with sundowners on the rocks of the headland, where drinks are served around the lamp-lit bar whilst the mountains, rising behind camp, disappear into the darkness.

DAY 10-11: MAHALE MOUNTAINS PARK – TANZANIA

Enjoy scheduled game activities.

DAY 12: RUAHA NATIONAL PARK – TANZANIA

Ruaha National Park is the largest national park in Tanzania, covering an area of about 13,000 square kilometres (5,000 sq miles) in what’s called “the southern circuit”. It’s in the middle of Tanzania and part of an extensive ecosystem which includes the Rungwa Game Reserve, Usangu Game Reserve and other protected areas.

The great Ruaha River runs through the park, flowing along its south-eastern margin; it’s here where the game viewing is at its best with the river being the main source of water at certain times of the year. The landscape is vast and wild with hills dotted with baobabs, rocky escarpments and open savannah; it also has less camps and lodges than most other parks, despite its size.

Ruaha is famous for its large population of elephant, with about 10,000 roaming in the park, and this is believed to be the highest concentration of elephant in East Africa . You can also see both the Greater and Lesser Kudu here, Sable and Roan antelope, as well as other plains game like giraffe, zebras and eland. Other animals in the park include lion, leopard, cheetah, bat-eared foxes and jackals and you might see the endangered wild dog. Crocodiles inhabit the Ruaha and Mzombe rivers, as well as a number of other reptiles.

It is a paradise for birders, with more than 571 species, some of them known to be migrants from within as well as outside of Africa. Migrating species from Europe, Asia, the Australian rim and Madagascar have been recorded in the park.

KIGELIA RUAHA CAMP Accommodation in Standard Tent – Includes All meals and house drinks, laundry, shared game drives and walking. Excludes non-house drinks, private guide/vehicle.

Kigelia Ruaha, named after the Kigelia Africana, or “Sausage” trees which surround the camp, is a small 12-bed tented camp on the edge of the Ifuguru sand river in Ruaha National Park.

The camp is very light and has minimal impact on the surroundings, but it is still stylishly furnished with all the comforts. The sleeping tents have large beds and en-suite bathrooms with flush toilets and an ‘open to the sky’ safari style bucket shower. The larger “pavilion’ style mess tent provides the living space for dining and relaxing, with a bar and a well- stocked library. This is an area that is usually full of game and it’s not uncommon to find elephants walking along the paths connecting the tents, or easily seen on the other side of the dry riverbed.

Ruaha National Park is Tanzania’s second largest National Park, covering an area of about 20,200 square kilometres. The park is known for its dramatic landscapes, massive baobab trees and the Great Ruaha River. The area is a transition zone where southern and eastern species of overlap, so there are a unique variety of animals, birds and flora and fauna to be seen.

DAY 13-14: RUAHA NATIONAL PARK – TANZANIA

Enjoy scheduled game activities.

DAY 15: DEPARTURE

END OF ARRANGEMENTS INCLUDED IN COST: • Accommodation as stated in itinerary. • Transfers as stated in the itinerary. • Light aircraft Arusha – Kogatende – Katavi – Mahale – Ruaha – Arusha. • Tours as stated. • Meals as detailed in itinerary. • 14% vat tax.

EXCLUDED FROM THE COST • International Flights. • Transfers not specified in the itinerary. • Meals, drinks and laundry not specified in the itinerary. • National parks and concession fees not specified in the itinerary. • Premium brand drinks, champagne, cognacs, cellar wines, cigars and cigarettes. • Sightseeing and excursions not specified in the itinerary. • All items of a personal nature, such as hotel extras, room service, phone calls, laundry and meals not mentioned in the itinerary. • Gratuities to guides and game rangers. • Services not mentioned in the itinerary. • Cancellation and interruption insurance. • Entry Visas

You may leave Africa forever but Africa will never leave you.