7 Days: Lake Manyara / Serengeti Plains / Ngorongoro Crater / Tarangire

Day 1: Arusha - Lake Manyara

Non game-viewing travel time: 2½ hours

Distance: 203/130 km

Pick up from Moshi/Arusha and transfer to Lake Manyara National Park. We arrive in time for lunch at the lodge/campsite and after lunch we head into the Lake Manyara National Park for an afternoon game drive. This national park is one of Tanzania's most dramatically located wildlife areas, consisting of a massive but shallow soda lake (covering two-thirds of the park), located at the foot of the Great Rift Valley's western escarpment. The park's varied habitat attracts a wide variety of animals, including one of Africa's largest concentrations of elephants, Lake Manyara's unique tree-climbing lions, as well as large flocks of flamingos attracted by the algae in the lake.