6-Day Tanzania Walking Safari: Tarangire, Empakaai Crater & Lake Natron

Day-by-day itinerary

1. Day1

   Arrival at Kilimanjaro International Airport and Arusha

   Our guide meets you at Kilimanjaro International Airport and drives you about an hour to Arusha, at the foot of Mount Meru. The rest of the day is for rest and repacking. This trip spends a good part of each day on foot, so in the evening your guide checks your footwear and day pack and runs through the plan: bush walks with an armed ranger in Tarangire, a game drive in the Ngorongoro Crater, a hike into Empakaai Crater in the highlands and two walks at Lake Natron in the Rift Valley. He will also talk about the pace. Walks are not races; they are usually two to four hours, with plenty of stops to look at tracks, plants and birds, and the guide sets the speed to the slowest walker. Good, broken-in walking shoes, a hat and a light long-sleeved shirt matter more here than on a vehicle safari. Dinner and overnight at Arusha Coffee Lodge or Mount Meru Hotel.

   • Airport pick-up
   • Arusha Coffee Lodge or Mount Meru Hotel
   • Dinner
2. Day2
   

   Arusha to Tarangire, Afternoon Walking Safari

   After breakfast you drive about two hours to the Tarangire area, with a game drive in Tarangire National Park on the way to camp. The park covers about 2,850 square kilometres and is known for large elephant herds and baobab trees, some of them many centuries old. After lunch and a rest in the heat, you head out in the late afternoon on your first walking safari with your guide and an armed ranger. On foot, the bush becomes a different place: you notice the elephant paths worn into the ground, the holes in the baobab trunks where bees and owls live, and the alarm call of a dik-dik when something larger moves. The walk ends with a drink as the sun drops behind the baobabs. Dinner and overnight at Oliver’s Camp or Kuro Tarangire, two small camps that specialise in walking.

   • Game drive, afternoon walk
   • Oliver's Camp or Kuro Tarangire
   • Breakfast, lunch, dinner
3. Day3
   

   Tarangire Morning Walk and Drive to the Ngorongoro Highlands

   You set out early for a longer morning walk of three to four hours, when animals are active and the air is still cool. Your ranger leads you along the edge of the swamps and the river, reading the fresh tracks of the night: lion, hyena, porcupine. Elephants, buffalo, zebra and giraffe are often seen on foot, at a careful distance. After brunch you drive north-west, climbing the Rift Valley escarpment to Karatu in the Ngorongoro highlands, about three hours. The country changes from dry bush to red soil, coffee farms and wheat fields. In the late afternoon there is time for a short walk through the coffee plantation at your lodge, where you can see how the beans are grown, picked and roasted. Dinner and overnight at Ngorongoro Farm House.

   • Morning walk, drive to Karatu
   • Ngorongoro Farm House
   • Breakfast, lunch, dinner
4. Day4
   

   Ngorongoro Crater Game Drive

   Walking is not allowed on the crater floor, so today you go by vehicle. You descend at first light about 600 metres to the floor of the Ngorongoro Crater, which covers some 260 square kilometres and holds lion, elephant, buffalo, hyena, zebra and wildebeest, hippo pools and, with luck, black rhino. After a picnic lunch by a hippo pool you climb out and drive along the crater rim road to the north-east, past Maasai villages and grazing cattle, to the foot of Olmoti and the high country around Empakaai. The air is cool at this altitude, often below 10°C at night, so the fireplace in your tent is welcome. Dinner and overnight at The Highlands camp or similar.

   • Ngorongoro Crater game drive
   • The Highlands or similar
   • Breakfast, lunch, dinner
5. Day5
   

   Hike into Empakaai Crater, Drive to Lake Natron

   After an early breakfast you drive to the rim of Empakaai Crater, a collapsed volcano of about six kilometres across whose floor is half covered by a deep soda lake. With an armed Ngorongoro Conservation Area ranger you hike down a steep forest path of about 300 metres to the lakeshore, where flamingos feed in the shallows and blue monkeys and bushbuck live in the forest on the walls. On a clear day you can see Ol Doinyo Lengai, the active volcano, from the rim. The climb back takes about an hour. After lunch you drive down the escarpment to Lake Natron, about three hours on a rough road, dropping more than 1,500 metres into the hot, dry floor of the Rift Valley. Dinner and overnight at Lake Natron Camp or similar.

   • Empakaai Crater hike, drive to Lake Natron
   • Lake Natron Camp or similar
   • Breakfast, lunch, dinner
6. Day6
   

   Ngare Sero Waterfall Walk and Return to Arusha

   You start early with a walk up the Ngare Sero gorge with a local Maasai guide, following the river upstream, wading in places, to the waterfalls at its head, where you can swim in a natural pool. Or, if you prefer, walk out across the flats of Lake Natron, the main breeding site for lesser flamingos in East Africa, and see the ancient human footprints preserved in the volcanic mud near the lakeshore. Above you rises Ol Doinyo Lengai at 2,962 metres, the “Mountain of God” of the Maasai. After lunch you drive back to Arusha, about five hours, for a transfer to Kilimanjaro International Airport or a hotel night (not included).

   • Ngare Sero walk, drive to Arusha
   • Breakfast, lunch