Welcome to the Bushmen country in Lake Eyasi and the astonishing big five animals hiding inside the Ngorongoro crater.
Whatever your arrival time at Kilimanjaro International Airport, your Rhino guide will be waiting for you with a warm welcoming smile. Kick back and relax in your comfortable vehicle as he takes you to your hotel in Arusha, Tanzania’s self-styled ‘safari capital.’
On your journey to the hotel, you will get a brief impression of small-scale mixed farming from local Meru tribe people. Depending on your arrival time, you may have your pre-safari briefing today; if not, it will take place early tomorrow morning.
A compact villa choice located 15km from the centre of Arusha. Arusha Villa is simply fabulous, comfortable and draws inspiration for its artistic décor from Tanzania and its captivating lush and green natural environment surrounded by water sources.
Arusha Villa is the perfect place to relax, either before or after your safari, with comfortable and spacious rooms and suites, a bar and an inviting swimming pool to cool you down after a hot day.
What’s more, the excellent restaurant offers truly African cuisine, with influences from Tanzania. There is something delicious to please everyone. Best of all, you are assured of a warm, Tanzanian welcome from the hotel team, dedicated to making your stay here as comfortable as possible.
Meal Plan: Dinner at the Villa.
Lake Eyasi is located in the Great Rift Valley, southwest of the Ngorongoro. Its salt-water levels experience dramatic changes with the seasons: in years with little rainfall, the lake can almost disappear.
We will first experience a hunting trip with the Hadzabe, the last hunter-gatherers in Tanzania, before receiving a welcome from a different tribe, the colourful Datoga people. You will also see a local blacksmith practising his craft, fashioning pots and weapons from scrap metal.
After an action-packed morning, we will drive to Ngorongoro, where we will enjoy our lunch and spend the night.
Our over three-hour trip takes us westwards from Arusha. Along the route, your eyes will be opened to all the colours and character of Tanzania: perhaps some Maasai herdsmen driving their flocks of goats to new pastures. From Lake Manyara, our afternoon journey continues westwards to Lake Eyasi.
After breakfast, we head to Lake Eyasi and we drive to a remote location where no road. Here live the Hadzabe hunter-gatherers. For thousands of years, the Hadzabe hunter-gatherers have lived in Lake Eyasi. They are some of the last remaining hunter-gatherers on the Earth.
We go deep into the bush and set up a bush camp next to the Hadzabe's huts. On these two days, we join the Hadzabe on their hunting trips, learn their hunting techniques, and see how they gather wild honey. In the evenings, the Hadzabe sing and tell stories at slow-burning Acacia fire. (B, L, D).
The Hadzabe live only in the Lake Eyasi region of Tanzania. There are estimated to be around 1,300 Hadzabe people living in Tanzania. They are living a hunter-gatherer existence that is little changed from 10,000 years ago.
Early morning we will join the hunters and visit the hunting bushes. The Hadzabe men hunt animals using three different kinds of bows and arrows. As well as wild meat, the Hadzabe women gather roots and tubers using digging sticks, and men collect natural wild honey found in trees. Here we create memories that are hardly forgotten.
Ngorongoro will be our final destination, we have already explored Lake Eyasi, the stunning lake being the backdrop for the fascinating tribes who live here. Tanzania’s people can be as interesting as its wildlife – today, you have certainly found that out!
Breakfast will be provided by your Lake Eyasi accommodation. Lunch will be a cooked lunch, to be enjoyed at Lake Eyasi. Your evening meal will be a full, cooked dinner created by the chef and his team at the Ngorongoro.
After our morning visit to the incomparable crater – see below - and then lunch, we will have a 4-hour journey, covering the 205km back to Arusha Villa.
Like nothing else on Earth, the stunning crater of Ngorongoro is a unique home for many, many species of Tanzania’s wildlife. With some luck, you may even see a black rhino here.
From our safari camp, we set off after breakfast, a 6am departure to reach the rim and then descend into the vast crater itself. At one side there’s the Lerai Forest, classic mountain forest landscape with almost tropical characteristics.
Lerai forest is a spot for elephants, so keep your eyes peeled. By the side of the nearby swampland is what is sometimes called the ‘elephant graveyard’ as the mighty male tuskers at the end of their lives come to chew on the soft, swampland grasses once their teeth have failed them.
The crater has a population of around 120 lions, with well-defined territories; 15,000 wildebeest, 9,000 zebra, 400 hyenas, and around 50 black rhino. Many wildebeest and other herd animals are resident, benefiting from the many sources of year-round waters and are boosted by some migrators in season. Buffalo, Thomson’s gazelle and eland are also present in numbers.
Hippos can be found in pools and swampland and highland birdlife is colourful and plentiful around the waters. Flamingos can often be seen in Lake Magadi, which occupies part of the crater floor.
Breakfast is served at your accommodation at Ngorongoro. Lunch will be prepared by the Ngorongoro accommodation and enjoyed after your morning game-drive, before we return you to Arusha.
Breakfast and drive back to airport.
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