6-Day Big 5 Encounter Wildlife Lodge Safari

You’ll be picked up from Arusha and driven to Lake Manyara National Park for a game drive. The park’s varied habitat attracts a wide variety of animals, including one of Africa’s largest concentrations of elephants, tree-climbing lions, and large flocks of flamingos attracted by the algae in the lake. En route to the park you’ll stop in Mto wa Mbu for a cultural tour and hot lunch. Dinner and your overnight stay will be at the lodge.

After breakfast, you’ll drive towards Serengeti National Park via the beautiful high lying farmland of Karatu and the Ngorongoro Conservation Area. Leaving the highlands behind, you will proceed into the heart of wild Africa. The central area of the Serengeti is known as the Seronera. It is one of the richest wildlife habitats in the park and features the Seronera River, which provides a valuable water source that attracts wildlife well representative of most of the Serengeti’s species. You will arrive in time for a picnic lunch and enjoy an afternoon game drive in the park. Dinner and your overnight stay will be at the camp.

After breakfast, we’ll go game viewing along the Sogore River Circuit, which loops into the plains south of the Seronera River. This is a great place to see Thomson’s gazelle, topi, ostrich, and cheetahs. The visitor center close to the Serengeti Seronera Lodge and the public campsites is well worth a visit while you’re here.

In the afternoon, you will follow the Kopjes Circuit, which goes counter-clockwise around the Maasai Kopjes. This area usually attracts a number of lions and some formidably large cobras. Kopjes are weathered granite outcrops scattered around the plains. Most of them are miniature ecosystems that provide shade and drinking water in pools left in the rocks after it rains. This makes the kopjes particularly good for spotting wildlife in the dry seasons. Lions like to lie in wait nearby for animals coming to drink. Dinner and your overnight stay will be at the camp.

After an early breakfast at the lodge, you will go on a morning game with a packed lunch in hand en route to Ngorongoro Conservation Area. You have the option of making an optional stop at the Olduvai Gorge, which boasts history dating back to the dawn of time. It was here that the anthropologist Drs. Lois and Mary Leakey discovered the skulls of “Nutcracker Man” and “Handy Man,” both very significant links in the chain of human evolution. You will arrive in time for leisure, dinner, and your overnight stay at the lodge.

After breakfast you will descend over 600 meters into the Ngorongoro Crater to view wildlife during your full-day tour. Supported by a year-round water supply and fodder, the Ngorongoro Conservation Area Authority (NCAA) supports a wide variety of animals, including herds of wildebeest, zebra, buffalo, eland, warthog, hippo, and giant African elephants. You will visit Lake Magadi, a large but shallow alkaline lake in the southwestern corner, which is one of the main features of the crater. A large number of flamingos, hippos, and other water birds can usually be seen there. You will eat a picnic lunch. Dinner and your overnight stay will be at the lodge

After breakfast, you will have a full day game drive and picnic lunch in the park. Tarangire National Park is reputed to contain some of the largest elephant herds in Africa. Tarangire is also home to three rare species of animals: the great kudu, the fringed-eared oryx, and a few ashy starlings. Later on, you will drive back to Arusha/Moshi, which will conclude your safari.