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Masai Safari
13 DAYS

full itinerary | prices and departures

Why Maasai Safari?

Specially guided trip by Peter Lindstrom, a deeper insight into both the culture and wildlife of this superlative destination.

Description
Specially guided by Peter Lindstrom of Hoopoe Safaris, this grand safari ensures you of fantastic game viewing, ending with three glorious days and nights in Hoopoe’s luxury tented camp in the Serengeti. The enormous ecosystem composed of the Serengeti and Ngorongoro is Maasailand, nearly 7,000 sq. miles. Although not the largest traditional community in East Africa, the Maasai were dominant over this vast expanse of wilderness. Their traditional life style helped preserve the wilderness and the wildlife that depends upon it. Peter will not only show you the most dramatic game viewing in East Africa, but also introduce you to the Maasai who have preserved it.

Click here to learn more about your guide.

Highlights

  • Views of Kilimanjaro
  • Private wilderness
  • Tarangire
  • Lake Manyara
  • Great Rift Valley
  • Ngorongoro
  • Serengeti
  • Personally guided by Peter Lindstrom

Full Itinerary

Day 1
ARUSHA

Whenever you arrive, you'll be personally met and transferred to the family-owned and managed Rivertrees Country Inn set in cool shaded wooded grounds with a lively stream lined with fig trees along one boundary. For those arriving early, optional activities can be arranged.

Days 2 & 3
KILIMANJARO HEARTLANDS / AMBOSELI ECO-SYSTEM

Drive through a patchwork of farmland skirting the flanks of Mount Kilimanjaro before reaching the lush, primeval highlands of the western edge of Mt. Kilimanjaro. Here you’ll enter into a private Maasai conservancy where Hoopoe and the local community maintain their award-winning community based conservation initiatives. Spend two nights in Hoopoe’s luxurious Hemingway’s Camp, the only guests on 60,000 acres. Enjoy game-viewing and the thrill of seeing some of the magnificent Amboseli elephants on foot or from your safari vehicle. Learn about the local Maasai and experience some of the most awesome scenery in Africa.

Day 4
WEST KILIMANJARO/TARANGIRE

Spend the morning visiting sacred Maasai cave paintings with an optional visit to a Maasai boma and chance to peruse Maasai beads and artefacts. Then, take a quick charter flight into the great Tarangire National Park. This is the best time of the year for this great elephant park, with its many magnificent sand rivers and dense bush. Arrive at the luxurious Hoopoe Tarangire Camp for lunch and then spend the afternoon game viewing through the park, encountering the large numbers of elephant. In some respects the park is more like a southern than northern Tanzanian park, with its heavy woodlands. Dinner and overnight at the classic Hoopoe Tarangire Camp inside the park.

Day 5
TARANGIRE

Full day exploring the sand rivers, grassland, and woodlands dotted with amazing baobab trees in this great park. The birdlife in Tarangire is outstanding, sitting directly underneath a flyby between southern Africa and Europe, capturing migrants from both hemispheres. Leopard are particularly abundant here, as are giraffe. But above all are the large numbers of elephant families, that concentrate in the park during the dry season in search of precious water in the Tarangire rivers. Meals and overnight at Hoopoe’s luxurious Tarangire Camp.

Day 6
LAKE MANYARA

Further game viewing in Tarangire this morning before leisurely making our way north towards the Great Rift Valley. Arrive Hoopoe's Kirurumu Tented Lodge for a late lunch. The tented lodge is set high on the edge of the Great Rift Valley escarpment with outstanding views over Lake Manyara and the plains below. This afternoon join one of Peter’s Maasai friends for a guided enthno-biological walk to the edge of the escarpment.

Day 7
LAKE MANYARA & THE GREAT RIFT

After an early start descend the Great Rift for a dawn game drive in this park famous for its early elephant studies, and one of the most beautiful parks in the northern circuit. The Park is best known for its tree climbing lions, but you are more likely to a encounter elephants, buffalo, primates and astounding bird life. After a picnic lunch you continue game-viewing. Return as the sun sets behind the distant highlands and climb the Great Rift Valley escarpment to Kirurumu Tented Lodge on its edge for a relaxing dinner and overnight.

Days 8 & 9
NGORONGORO CRATER

Spend two remarkable half-days in one of the most phenomenal places in Africa—the 2000-foot deep, 10 mile wide Ngorongoro Crater. At its nadir, the Ngorongoro volcano was once about 15,000 feet high and would have resembled present day Mount Meru. The volcano collapsed inwards about 1 ½ million years ago at a time when large fractures appeared creating the Eastern Rift Valley wall. Today, the Crater (actually a caldera) is seasonally home to over 20,000 large mammals. Its an animal paradise. See some of the world's largest elephant, large prides of lion, big herds of plains animals like zebra and wildebeest. The Crater is the last place in Africa where free-ranging black rhino are usually seen by all visitors. One afternoon is devoted to walking with Maasai in the western highlands overlooking Lake Eyasi in breath-taking scenery where Maasai herders and their livestock co-exist with wildlife in an eden like existence. The two days and nights will be spent at Tanzania's most lavish safari lodge, the Ngorongoro Crater Lodge. Enjoy your own fireplace, stoked by your personal butler who also keeps the sherry glasses full.

Days 10, 11 & 12
SERENGETI PLAINS

Leave the crater on a spectacular drive that takes you first to famous Olduvai Gorge, then overland into the great Serengeti, the Grande Dame of African wilderness. For three days and nights you'll explore the southern plains and western hills, where normally at this time of the year around 2 million wildebeest, zebra and a vast assortment of other plains animals, congregate to feast on the rich nutritious grasses that appear after the rainy season. There is no other as impressive or dramatic wildlife spectacle on earth. During these three nights you'll be pampered in a Hoopoe’s luxurious Serengeti Camp set near the migration but hours and days away from the main tourist lodges. The vistas are grand and the scene is often filled by tens of thousands of wildebeest and Zebra and other migrants and attendant predators.

DAY 13
ARUSHA/Depart

A quick morning flight returns you to Arusha by noon. You'll be met and transferred to the Arusha Hotel for lunch. In the afternoon you can either relax by the swimming pool or visit some of the local shops and the Tanzanite Experience museum. Day rooms shall be available for everyone until the evening departures.

2011 Departure Dates & Rates (per person and a minimum of 4 poeple)

Starts
Ends
$ Sharing
$ + Single
16-Jul-11
28-Jul-11
9,270
935
13-Aug-11
25-Aug-11
9,270
935

Special note: This safari can also be booked privately to depart any day of the year with a minimum of 2 people at the same cost but with Peter Lindstrom being replaced by one of our excellent Tanzania guides.

Click here to learn more about your guide.

NOTE: Programs operating over the festive season should expect a small supplement.

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