DAY 1 | ARRIVAL IN TANZANIA/LAKE MANYARA

Arrive into Arusha or Kilimanjaro Airport, Tanzania, and connect with the regional scheduled flight to Lake Manyara. You’ll be met upon arrival and taken to Kirurumu Tented Lodge for an afternoon of relaxing and recovering from your flights. The Kirurumu camp is a comfortable, permanent tented lodge set along the edge of the Rift Valley escarpment where it looks down the cliffs to the blue waters of the Lake Manyara National Park. Large comfortable tents with private verandas, flush toilets, and solar heated hot water showers provide all the comforts of home under canvas. A fully stocked bar and good restaurant ensures comfort for the palate as well. Your meals at camp will consist of full breakfasts, lighter lunches, and three-course dinners. Friendly, helpful staff will introduce you to the people of Tanzania and give a cultural insight to the tribes of this magnificent country.

DAY 2 | LAKE MANYARA NATIONAL PARK

You’ll begin your first day in Tanzania with a hearty breakfast and an ethno-botanical walk with a Masai guide. Then the wild life begins: your game drive into the park, complete with picnic lunch. There is also an option for a cultural visit to Mto wa Mbu, an ancient trading post, where all four of the major African language groups are spoken in the same area. Listen for Bantu, Khoisan, Cushitic, and Nilotic as you stroll the bustling market, a showcase for local handcrafts. You might visit a tribal elder, see a school, or talk with the local women. Dinner and overnight at Kirurumu Tented Lodge. [B,L,D]

DAY 3 | NGORONGORO CRATER AND OLDUVAI GORGE

The next three days will take you into the heart of the Ngorongoro area. This vast area is a microcosm of East Africa: recently active volcanoes, towering mountains, undulating plains, rolling sand dunes, forests, rivers, lakes, and of course, the world famous Olduvai Gorge archeological site. Get the big picture with a stop at the Ngorongoro Crater rim for a picnic lunch. then continue into the Crater highlands for your evening meal and overnight stay wilderness camping. The Ngorongoro Crater, a World Heritage Site, vies for the world's greatest scenery. This perfect caldera, 18 km across, boasts swamps, lakes, rivers, grasslands, woodlands and forests; with such a range of habitat, wildlife is found in profusion. Here is the highest concentration of predators in East Africa, with prides of lions, and a host of big and smaller cats: cheetah, leopard, the civets, servals, and genets. Grazing animals dominate Ngorongoro, with zebra, wildebeest, gazelle, buffalo, eland, warthog and hartebeest covering the crater floor. They may only be outnumbered by the birds in both air and water: red-eyed doves, Hildebrandt’s francolins, turacos, hornbills, shrikes, Verreaux eagles, spoonbill, and jacana. Wilderness camping provides clients with their own vehicle, a driver/guide, a camp cook and helper, and igloo-style, two-man tents with three-inch mattresses for sleeping. Campsites share a long-drop style safari toilet and shower. Chairs, tables, and all camping equipment are provided, and the meals in the mess tent are excellent! [B,L,D]

DAY 4 | NGORONGORO CONSERVATION AREA

Spend a full day walking in the highlands. Your picnic lunch, evening meal, and overnight will be at Makarot base camp, again in your two-man tents. Along the way, you may come across local people; the Masai graze their cattle in this area as they have for centuries. The Ngorongoro Conservation Area is not a national park; rather it's run by the NCA Authority, established in 1959 by the Tanzanian government, who coordinates the wildlife, Masai grazing, forestry, archeological sites, education, research and tourism. [B,L,D]

DAY 5 | NGORONGORO CRATER/SERENA LODGE

You've earned a bit of luxury, and a hot shower, and you'll get it today at the Ngorongoro Serena Lodge. Walk the grounds; after lunch, you'll descend into the Crater for an afternoon game drive. This large lodge is part of an excellent African hotel group that offers superb service; friendly, helpful staff; excellent food; and very comfortable rooms, even though deep in the African wilderness. Each lodge is decorated in a different style, picking up d�cor ideas from the local landscapes and peoples. The Serena Lodges offer excellent value for the text in all their locations. Dinner and overnight at the hotel. [B,L,D]

DAY 6 | NGORONGORO AREA/SERENGETI NATIONAL PARK

Take a last morning game drive through Ngorongoro; after a picnic lunch and a pass through the Olduvai Gorge, we head to the Serengeti National Park. Named after the Masai word for "endless plains," this 5,700-square-mile park lives up to the name, with the picture of Africa most familiar to visitors. One of the world’s last great wildlife refuges, it is estimated to contain over three million large animals, and countless millions more of the small. The wildebeest migration, with more than a million animals moving toward the new grasses after the rains, is a major circle running from May through November, depending on the year. It coincides with the breeding season, which increases the drama. Predators follow the path, so lion, cheetah, and spotted hyena are focused on the river crossings, the sick and the young. It's a show unsurpassed in nature. End your exciting day with dinner and overnight at another Serena Lodge, this one in the Serengeti. [B,L,D]

DAY 7 | SERENGETI NATIONAL PARK

Your day is open for another game drive through the Park. Home to more than just the wildlife however, the kopjes are often decorated with ancient Masai rock paintings. Using nothing more than natural ochre dyes and sticks of charcoal, the Masai recount the life of the plains. Images of elephant, antelope, cattle and men with tall, red shields survive through decades of wind and rain and allow a glimpse of tribal artwork. If you so choose, you can hang back at the hotel, taking in the views and the swimming pool. Evening meal and overnight at the Serengeti Serena. [B,L,D]

DAY 8 | SERENGETI NATIONAL PARK

There's a lot of ground to cover, so you'll spend another day in the Serengeti, driving to its northeastern boundary, with cool drinks and picnic lunch enroute to your next destination, the Loliondo Camp. Loliondo is, in essence, a semi-permanent tented camp. Put in place every season, the camp is removed for the rains each year to allow the site to regenerate. The tented accommodations are luxuriously comfortable and spacious, with ensuite bathrooms and tasteful furnishings. The tents are spread out throughout the kopje area with the dining tent at the base of the main kopje rock. Resident game is plentiful in the area, drawn during the dry seasons by the nearby waterhole and increasing in the spring and (especially) the autumn, when the migration can be expected to pass through the Concession on its way to/from the Mara area. The permanent camp crew takes great pride in providing a first-class service with excellent and varied menus, usually served in the dramatically situated dining tent. The camp also benefits Oloipiri Village through direct donations, which are made in proportion to client revenue. These publicly accountable payments have supported the local school and benefitted the local community and government. Settle in for your evening meal and overnight stay here at Loliondo Tented Camp. [B,L,D]

DAY 9 | LOLIONDO CAMP

Loliondo will be your base for the next two days. Spend them walking close to camp, visiting the local village, or heading back out on game drives to fill out your wildlife sighting list. Relax if you must--the scenery of one of the natural wonders of the world is spread out before you. Overnight at Loliondo Camp. [B,L,D]

DAY 10 | LOLIONDO CAMP

Another full day at Loliondo awaits you, and so do the villagers, the animals and the scenery. Overnight at Loliondo Camp. [B,L,D]

DAY 11 | DEPART TANZANIA

After breakfast, transfer to Lobo Airstrip for regional air service to Arusha (scheduled for 10:30am); then depart for home. [B]