11 Days Gorillas and Tanzania Safari

DAY 01:  Pick up from the Airport/Hotel in Arusha and drive to Tarangire National park

After early breakfast, you will be picked from your Hotel and drive to this special National Park. The park is famous for its diverse landscape with nine different vegetation zone and known for the abundance of baobab trees. The river of the park is full of wildlife ranging from a large variety of birds to lions, leopards, zebras, giraffes, buffaloes, antelopes and, of course, elephants. You will have lunch at a very is fascinating area with great views of the river and wildlife- if lucky, with good chances of seeing a hunt while having a picnic. You will do an afternoon game drive as you proceed to your accommodation.

 

Accommodation:Tarangire Simba Lodge

Meals: Full board

DAY 02: Transfer to Lake Manyara National Park

Today, you will journey through the rift valley to Lake Manyara National Park for full day game drive. Though small in size but has breathtaking scenery famous for its lush acacia forest, giant figs and permanent residents to this park include giraffes, elephants, lots of buffaloes and impalas. Special to this park are rare climbing lions and flamingos in the lake shore.

 

Accommodation: Manyara Wildlife Safari Camp

Meal plan: Full board

DAY 03: Transfer to Serengeti National Park

After an early breakfast, you will drive to the most famous National Park in the world, the Serengeti. It is a long but spectacular drive through the crater highland, making a quick stop at the rim for out of this world view of Ngorongoro crater. It is the home of the Great Migration and to 2 million wildebeests, hundreds of thousands of zebras and all kinds of antelopes including the abundant impalas and Thomson’s gazelles.

Accommodation: Serengeti Sopa Lodge

Meal plan: Full board

DAY 04 & 5: Serengeti National Park

You will spend two full days doing game drives in Serengeti National Park. A chance to see big cats and large predators, look out for lions, cheetahs, leopards, hyenas. Smaller animals like mongoose, foxes, honey badgers, jackals, baboons, rock hyrax with more than 500 species of birds inhabit this park.

 

Accommodation: Serengeti Sopa Lodge

Meal plan: Full board

DAY 06: Transfer to Ngorongoro Conservation Area

Today, you will do an early morning game drive and see one of the best sunrises you’ll ever witness. It’s really one of the most beautiful experiences to have.
After the game drive, we return to the lodge for a rewarding brunch and then we’ll proceed to Ngorongoro, the 8th wonder of the Natural World. It is one of the places in the continent where you can see black rhino and concentration of Africa wildlife is the greatest. Ngorongoro is also famous for its elephants which are largest in the world with huge tasks.

 

Accommodation: Ngorongoro Sopa

Meal plan: Full board

DAY 07: Ngorongoro and transfer to Lake Eyasi

We will start the day very early and descend into the crater floor for an incredible morning of wildlife in one of the most stunning places on Earth. It’s one of the very rare locations in the whole continent where you can witness the black Rhino. The crater has a river, several swamps, a soda lake with a great concentration of flamingos, a forest and open plains. After lunch, we will have time for a short game drive and then ascend the crater and exit Ngorongoro Conservation Area towards Lake Eyasi, where you will have a unique and fascinating cultural experience on the next day.

Accommodation: Lake Eyasi Safari Lodge

Meal plan: Full board

DAY 08: Lake Eyasi, cultural Encounter of Hadzare Tribe and back to Arusha for your flight to Uganda or Kigali, Rwanda

Today, you awake before sunrise and head out with your guide to find the Hadzabe tribe, one of the last nomadic tribes in Africa. You can participate in joining the tribecan the men of this tribe in their daily hunting, or the women in their fruit gathering session. Once you are done with activities with hadze tribe, you will visit lake Eyasi, a season shallow salt lake on the floor of the Great Rift Valley and then transfer back to Arusha for your flight to Uganda or Kigali, Rwanda.

DAY 09: Pick up from Kampala/Entebbe/Kigali and Transfer to Bwindi Impenetrable Forest National Park

On this day you driver guide for your trip will pick you from your hotel in Kampala/Entebbe or Kigali and start the drive to Bwindi Impenetrable Forest National Park, this drive is long but worth it you will enjoy amazing sceneries and meet up with the local communities along the way. You will have a stop at the Equator for photographs, lunch en-route and other optional multiple stops depending on your request and time.

 

Lodging: Rushaga Gorilla Havens Lodge/Buhoma Community Rest Camp

DAY 10: Gorilla tracking Experience and Community visit

After breakfast at the lodge, you will drive to the park headquarters for briefing from the Uganda wildlife Authority ranger guides who will allocate you a gorilla family group you will trek that day. Once you have your group confirmed 8 people, the 2 ranger guides will lead you into the thick impenetrable forest to start your search for the endangered rare species of Mountain Gorillas. The gorilla search always continues from the place where they were last seen the previous day. Upon reaching the area where these famous species are, you will only be allowed to interact with them for only one hour and you should always keep maximum silence while with these Gorillas. You are allowed to take photographs and so on. In the evening, you may go for community walks in the nearby Batwa community, where you will be entertained and given tales of their unique culture.
Gorilla tracking can sometimes be strenuous depending on the trek that day which is normally determined by weather and the movement of the gorillas in the forest but given the fact it is very well organized activity you have 99% chances of seeing the gorillas on your trek. The trek is guided by advanced trackers who monitor the gorilla movements all day in the forest with this they will know where they nested for the last night and that’s where you start from looking for them. The 2 ranger guides will lead you all through the trek clearing trails, creating new trails and sharing with you information about the mountain gorillas and Bwindi forest. After the trek you will retrieve back to the starting point to pick your certificates as a sign of successful tracking of mountain gorillas in Bwindi Impenetrable Forest National Park.

 

Lodging: Rushaga Gorilla Havens Lodge/Buhoma Community Rest Camp

DAY 11: Transfer back to Kampala/Entebbe/Kigali to end the tour

Early morning breakfast, after you will start your journey back to Kampala/Entebbe with stopovers for photography in some of the areas with tourist’s attractions, you will arrive in Kampala/Entebbe in the late afternoon, and you will be transferred back to end the tour.