3 Day Serengeti and Ngorongoro Crater Discovery

This three day expedition introduces you to the very best of Tanzania's northern safari circuit without requiring weeks of travel time. On the first morning your guide collects you from your Arusha hotel and heads west, crossing the fertile farmlands of Karatu and climbing through the Ngorongoro Conservation Area before the terrain opens suddenly onto the endless golden grasslands of the Serengeti. The word Serengeti comes from the Maasai language meaning endless plain, and the moment you crest the escarpment the name makes perfect sense.

Your first afternoon is spent in the Seronera area, the geographic heart of the park and one of its most productive wildlife zones. The Seronera River threads through the landscape, drawing elephants, lions, leopards, hippos and a rich variety of antelope to its banks year round. Cheetahs are frequently spotted on the open flats and leopards are known to drape themselves across the wide horizontal branches of sausage trees overhanging the riverine forest.

On the second day you rise before dawn to witness a Serengeti sunrise, widely regarded as one of the most extraordinary natural spectacles on earth. The morning game drive begins as the savannah lights up in amber and rose, with predators still active from their nocturnal hunts. Prides of lions sprawl in the early warmth while elephant families move in slow procession across the plains. The afternoon carries you towards the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, arriving at the crater rim as the light turns golden and the scale of the ancient caldera becomes clear.

The third and final day brings the dramatic descent into the Ngorongoro Crater, dropping more than six hundred metres through cloud forest to the crater floor. Covering approximately two hundred and sixty square kilometres, the crater supports one of the highest densities of wildlife on the continent. Black rhinoceros, lion, spotted hyena, elephant, buffalo and an astonishing variety of bird life including enormous flocks of flamingo on Lake Magadi are regularly encountered. After a full morning of game viewing and a picnic lunch on the crater floor, you return to the rim and travel back to Arusha in the afternoon.