NC15- Serengeti Hot Air Balloon Safari

Day 1: Arrival

Transfer from Kilimanjaro airport or a previously agreed pick-up point in Arusha to your hotel for dinner and overnight.

Day 2: Lake Manyara National Park

Leave Arusha at 8:00 am and drive to Lake Manyara national park for an afternoon game drive.  Lake Manyara national park is well known for its tree-climbing lions. The park covers 390 sq km and is a sanctuary for over 400 species, including the pink flamingos, pelicans, storks, ibis, Egyptian geese, eagle owl, bateleur, etc. There is also huge herds of buffalo and elephant.

Day 3: Serengeti National Park

Leave at 8:00 am after breakfast for Serengeti passing through Olduvai Gorge, the archeological site of the Leakey family. The Serengeti is renowned for its annual wildebeest migration and large predator population.  From February to May, a herd of over a million wildebeests migrates for the Western corridor of the park in search of greener pastures. Serengeti’s other common animals include lion, leopard, zebra, Thompson’s gazelle, impala, grant’s gazelle, and buffalo. Most of the park is open grassland broken by isolated granite kopjes and patches of acacia woodlands.

Day 4: Baloon Safari in Serengeti

At 5:00 am, we drive you from your central Serengeti lodgings to nearby Maasai Kopjes, where your balloon safari will begin. Here you will meet your pilot, receive a briefing and watch the inflation of your balloon. You take off at dawn, rising as the sun rises and gliding in whichever direction the winds of the morning take you. Your pilot can precisely control the altitude of your balloon: sometimes flying at treetop height, sometimes lower, offering a unique perspective and great photographic opportunities of the wildlife below. At other times he will ascend to 1000′ or more to see the enormity and wonderful panorama of the Serengeti. The pilot must put more heat into the balloon with the powerful whisper burners from time to time. In between these burns, there is total silence, apart from the natural sounds below. Breakfast will be served in the bush under the Acacia tree shade. Then we drive you back to your lodgings, where you can relax until your sunset game drive.

Day 5: Ngorongoro Conservation Authority Area

Depart at 8:00 am after breakfast and drive to the rim of Ngorongoro, One of the World’s largest Calderas, 20 km wide; Ngorongoro Crater is one of the best wildlife viewing areas for black rhinos in Tanzania. The crater at 2,286m above sea level is the largest unbroken caldera in the world.  Surrounded by very steep walls, rising 610 meters from the crater floor, it covers 260 sq km and is home to over 30,000 animals, almost half of them being zebra and wildebeest. Ngorongoro is listed as a World Heritage site.

Day 6: Ngorongoro Crater

Early breakfast at 6:00 is with a picnic lunch on a full-day crater tour. You will be taken 2000ft down the crater by a 4 wheel drive vehicle, explore the crater and its amazing wildlife before ascending to the Ngorongoro Crater rim, and drive to Karatu Village for your overnight stay.

Day 7: Tarangire National Park

Leave at 8:00 am after breakfast and drive to Tarangire for an afternoon game drive. Herds of up to 300 elephants scratch the dry river bed for underground streams, while migratory wildebeest, zebra, buffalo, impala, gazelle, hartebeest, and eland crowd the shrinking lagoons. It’s the greatest concentration of wildlife outside the Serengeti ecosystem – a smorgasbord for predators – and the one place in Tanzania where dry-country antelope such as the stately fringe-eared oryx and peculiar long-necked gerenuk are regularly observed.

Day 8: Tarangire - Arusha

After breakfast, you can take a walking safari at the park’s boundary, then we drive back to Arusha and drop you off as arranged during booking.

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• All activities as per the itinerary
• All Accommodation as per itinerary – N.B. accommodation mentioned in the itinerary is dependent on availabilty at the time of booking; alternatives of a similar class may be booked instead
• All meals as per itinerary (3 a day unless otherwise stated)
• All transfers to and from agreed pick up and drop off points (e.g. Airport, Bus Station or hotel in town etc)
• All camping gear (if you are camping)
• Service of an English speaking driver/guide
• Safari base 4×4 Vehicle with open roof for game viewing (sometimes a saloon car or other SUV for excursions in town etc.)
• Driver’s salary and allowances and park fees for vehicle and driver
• Bottled mineral water daily
• All Government taxes
• All National Park and Game Reserve Fees
• If included in your itinerary: foot safaris, boat safaris
• TANAPA armed ranger (where needed, eg. on foot safaris, some boat safaris etc.)
• Crater service fees (if visiting Ngorongoro Crater)

• Extras, personal expenses i.e. drinks, telephone, laundry etc.
• Optional activities not outlined on the itinerary
• International flights & corresponding taxes
• Visa
• Flying doctors rescue services
• Travel, medical, injury and luggage insurances
• Tips to the driver & guides
• Anything else not mentioned in the inclusions (above).