5 Days Serengeti Hot Air Balloon Safari

We head towards the Serengeti National Park. En route, there is an opportunity to visit Olduvai Gorge. It is within this steep-sided ravine that Louis and Mary Leakey made some of the world’s most important archaeological discoveries in the 1950s. Here is a small museum we are able to see evidence of our ancestors that have been dated back 2.5 million years. After lunch, we drive into the Serengeti itself and the rest of the afternoon is spent game viewing in the vast plains that are broken only by stands of acacia trees and the occasional kopje. In December, January and February we will normally meet the migration with large herds of wildebeest, zebra, and gazelle. There are always plenty of resident animals, such as giraffes, buffalo, and elephants, and many large predators such as lions, cheetah, and leopards. We return to our special tented camp for the balloon safari briefing.

• Dinner and overnight at Serengeti Kirimu Luxury Camp: Full board.

Early morning pick-up from your Tented camp to Balloon Safari is probably the most beautiful balloon flight in the world and the ultimate Tanzania Safari Experience which makes you enjoy the most beautiful migration of wildebeests through the endless plain of Serengeti.

5:00 am, Serengeti Balloon Safaris will collect you from your central Serengeti lodge or camp, and transfer you by Landrover to our launch site near Masai Kopjes. Here you will meet your pilot, receive a briefing, and watch the inflation of your balloon.

At dawn we take off, rising as the sun rises and float in whichever direction the winds of the morning take us.

Your pilot can precisely control the altitude of your balloon: sometimes flying at treetop height, sometimes lower, offering a unique perspective and great photographic opportunities of the wildlife below. After breakfast, you are taken to the rendezvous point to meet with your driver guide and continue with your full-day game drives.

• Dinner and overnight at Serengeti Kirimu Luxury Camp: Full board

We start the day with an early morning game drive before heading to the Ngorongoro Conservation Area. Ngorongoro is a special place in that it is a Conservation Area, not a National Park; this means that the whole area is managed by both the animals and the local Masai people who graze their cattle alongside the indigenous wildlife. During the drive-in Ngorongoro, we have a chance to glimpse something of the Maasai way of life.

Finally, we descend into the crater. The crater walls provide a natural sanctuary for the animals, which means there is plenty to see: lions, elephants, buffalo, rhinos, and leopards (if you are lucky). The only animal you won’t see here is a giraffe, whose long legs are unable to cope with the steeps sides of the crater. In the late afternoon, we travel back to our special tented camp.

• Dinner and overnight at Eileen’s Tree Inn Lodge: Full board.

We depart from your tented lodge and proceed to Lake Manyara National Park. Although small in size, this park is one of the most diverse reserves in the country. Lake Manyara covers two-thirds of the park. At the backdrop is the wall of the Great Rift Valley, before which lies the groundwater forest, areas of open grassland near the lake foreshore, and the Soda Lake. We enjoy a picnic lunch in this area, which consists of open grassy areas, hot springs, dense woodlands, and steep mountainsides. Lake Manyara National Park is a birding paradise that has more than 350 species of bird. The park is also famed for its unique and elusive tree.

After lunch, we drive to Arusha for accommodation or to Kilimanjaro International Airport for your flight back home.