July 11 - 23, 2010  

This EWT family safari is designed to provide families with the same quality and character of EWT's most popular Kenyan/Tanzanian safaris, with a few added twists for the kids. Operating in the depth of East Africa's dry season, it stays only in those parks which provide good game viewing in this season. Everyone is guaranteed a window seat in specially designed safari vehicles with pop-top roofs. In addition to East Africa's best driver/guides, an EWT safari manager will join the group after 8 participants have reserved. This trip often draws couples and singles anxious to be a part of a family group but not necessarily traveling with their own families.

The prices include: ** A Safari Manager who stays with you throughout and manages the entire program (after 8 reserved); ** Guaranteed window seating in Landrovers & Landcruisers with pop-top roofs; ** Professionally-trained, English-speaking driver/guides with each vehicle; ** Meals as detailed in brackets following each day's description below; ** Four local flights: Arusha to Kilimanjaro, Kilimanjaro to Nairobi, Nairobi to the Mara, and the Mara back to Nairobi; ** All park entrance fees, VAT and other government taxes; ** Comprehensive pre-trip material with discount coupons for travel gear and equipment. Additional expenses not included, estimated at around $300 per person: - Meals not included; - All beverages; - Requisite visas and other travel preparations like inoculations; - Tipping.

Contact EWT for the best international air fares and for recommendations on how to use your frequent flyer miles.

Whenever you arrive, you'll be personally met by your professional safari guide and privately transferred to Nairobi's legendary Norfolk Hotel. This afternoon your guide will take you on an interesting walking tour of Nairobi. You'll start at Parliament where you'll be introduced to local politics, then you'll walk past the square of the churches and to the historic Thorntree Cafe for tea where you'll learn of Kenya's colorful colonial past. You'll have time to browse some shops if you wish, buy newspapers and maps and get ready for tomorrow's safari. Return to the hotel for an independent evening. One of the key successes to a safari is the guide, and ours has been leading safaris in East Africa most of his life. Few can match our guide's knowledge of East Africa's wilderness. And in addition to the special insights you will be receiving about the animals and game parks, you'll also learn first-hand insight about the cultures and developing societies of East Africa.  [no meals]

This morning you meet our professional driver/guides and board our specially outfitted safari Landcruisers to begin the safari! Travel south of the city through Kenya's citrus farming districts into its largest national park, Tsavo National Park. You'll arrive for lunch, and begin your game viewing in the afternoon. Tsavo was the most famous elephant hunting area in the world. Then, during the years of horrible poaching, as many as 30,000 resident elephants were decimated to a population of less than several thousand. The Kenyan government's response was unexpected and unequivocal, and in 1982 Kenya banned all hunting. The ban remains in force today, although more than ever before there are indications it may soon be reversed. Elephant populations have been rebounding wonderfully since the end of poaching in the 1990s, and today Tsavo's elephant population is approaching 8,000. The park is composed of semi-arid, post volcanic scrubland with many scenic escarpments and old blowholes. The area around Kilaguni Lodge is near enough Kilimanjaro that there are many springs, including the famous Mzima Springs, site of many National Geographic studies and films. The lodge's long narrow veranda that extends just beyond the dining area is elevated and looks over the lodge water hole, which is often surrounded by game. There is a small swimming pool as well, making Kilaguni the perfect place to begin a grand safari! Dinner and overnight at Kilaguni Lodge.  [b-l-d]

The dawn game drive is likely to encounter large families of elephant. This is also the best time for finding the great predators, lion and leopard, and there are many in Tsavo. You'll return to the lodge for a splendid breakfast, and the morning is available for safari walks or relaxing by the pool. For those interested, your guide will also take you this morning to famous Mzima Springs, where an underground river off Mt. Kilimanjaro erupts over a lava bed creating a beautiful clear pond that attracts much game. After lunch, another game drive is included. Many people's favorite memories of their safari are just sitting on the veranda at Kilaguni looking over the veldt to Mt. Kilimanjaro. Dinner and overnight at Kilaguni Lodge.  [b-l-d]

After breakfast continue into your second national park, the famous Amboseli National Park, which sits directly beneath Mt. Kilimanjaro. The drive is over the interesting Shetani Lava Flow and beside the gorgeous Chyulu Hills. The route is the closest that any non-climber can get to the summit of Mt. Kilimanjaro, providing some exceptional views. You arrive at Amboseli Serena Lodge for lunch, and begin game viewing in the afternoon. Amboseli is an immense, usually dry soda lake. The edge of the park is a marsh and forest where the lodges are located, and this is what draws the considerable game. There are large numbers of plains species like zebra and wildebeest and, at the edges, good numbers of cheetah and lion.  [b-l-d]

A dawn game drive may succeed in finding some of Amboseli's famous cheetah, the only cat that must hunt during the day. This is also a gorgeous time for photography, as the sunrise on the many lake pools reflects thousands of exotic birds. After breakfast the safari continues to the Tanzanian/Kenyan border post at Namanga, where you bid goodbye to your Kenyan driver/guides and pick up Tanzanian driver/guides in a new set of Landcruisers to continue your safari in Tanzania. It's then a short drive into Arusha town, where you'll have lunch at a popular local restaurant. In the afternoon continue over the Maasai Plains into the Great Rift Valley. The Rift began forming about 25 million years ago and is essentially tearing the continent apart. The result is a series of beautiful lakes and dramatic escarpments, and one of the most spectacular ones are found at Lake Manyara. Climb the escarpment to the Manyara Serena Lodge for dinner and overnight.  [b-l-d]

Dawn game drive in Lake Manyara National Park with a picnic breakfast. This is when the light is best for photography and the chances of finding Manyara's big leopard are the best. Manyara was where the first important elephant research was conducted by Ian Douglas Hamilton. Many elephants can be seen today, even though the park suffered heavily during the years of poaching. Manyara is above all one of the prettiest parks on the circuit, with thick, magical forests that contain more species of trees than in most of North America. Because of its diverse habitats and life forms, the park has been declared a UNESCO biosphere . Through the forests and onto the savannahs and finally lakeshore, you'll see a wide range of animals and birds. This is the park famous for its lions-in-the-tree. (Lions climb any trees they can, anywhere, but because Manyara offers so many different varieties, the lions, opportunities are greater here than elsewhere.) Return to the lodge for a later lunch and in the afternoon continue into the farming community just outside Ngorongoro Crater for two nights at the newly rebuilt and famous Gibb's Farm  [b-l-d].

Leave Gibb's Farm early to maximize your game drive in Ngorongoro Crater National Park. The earlier you get onto the crater floor, the better is your chance to find black rhino. Black rhino are nearly extinct in the wild, and the crater is one of the few places where they can be seen free ranging, not protected inside a fenced sanctuary. Ngorongoro Crater was once the earth's highest mountain. Two to three million years ago, it blew its stack, in what had to have been one of the most violent natural occurrences ever experienced by our planet. In a geologically short hundred thousand years it formed what exists today, truly what John Fosdick calls the "8th Wonder of the World." The density of lion in the crater is as great as Kenya's Maasai Mara, the highest on earth. And some of the last, vintage giant tuskers are found here, surprisingly, since this is not good elephant habitat. But during the horrible years of elephant poaching, some of the greatest of the tuskers took refuge in the crater, and they've stayed like old men now unable to change their routine. Enjoy a picnic lunch on the crater floor adjacent a lake often filled with hippo, then return to Gibb's Farm for dinner and overnight.  [b-l-d]

Return this morning on the Manyara road then continue to Tarangire National Park, enter the national park at its northern gate. You spend the day inside the park game viewing with a picnic lunch. Entering Tarangire is impossible for anyone who has read the "Little Prince" without immediately thinking of it. There are more grand baobab trees here than anywhere in Africa. The Maasai legend which claims a baobab is an upside down tree, because at the beginning of time the elephant walked into it angrily, tore it up and stuck it back in the ground upside down, is especially appropriate for now. You are likely to see more elephant now in Tarangire than anywhere else in Africa at any time of the year. During the dry season months, as many as 4,000 of East Africa's surviving elephants migrate into this park in search of the water provided by Tarangire's northern swamps and rivers. This annual elephant migration is one of the last great congregation of elephants in Africa, and a sight never to be forgotten. At the end of the day you exit the park at its eastern side for dinner and overnight at Kikoti Camp.  [b-l-d]

Of course there's much more big game in Tarangire than just the elephants alone. And today you can return with your guide to the park, or you can avail yourself of the special opportunities which exist staying in a private reserve just outside the park. Kikoti Camp operates exciting foot safaris with trained guides that depart camp in the early morning and late afternoon. Your guide will work with you to organize everyone's day. Meals and overnight in camp.  [b-l-d]

The safari ends in Kenya's best game park, the Maasai Mara, and most of today is spent getting there. Game drive out of Tarangire back to Arusha town in time for the noon flights, via Kilimanjaro and Nairobi airports, into the Maasai Mara, scheduled to arrive in mid-afternoon. The group will be met by Landrovers that will game view the rest of the afternoon into the very special Governor's Camp for dinner and overnight.  [b- -d]

There is no better place to end a great safari than in the Mara. The gently rolling grassland plains are bisected by a number of great rivers, including the wide and deep Mara. Unlike so many other places in East Africa, off-road game viewing is allowed in certain places with certain caution, and at times you can be game viewing with virtually no one else in sight. The Mara is the top-most part of the Serengeti ecosystem -- only an invisible border divides it from the Serengeti, and together with the Ngorongoro Conservation Area south of the Serengeti, this is the most productive, extensive protected wilderness on the continent. In addition to the excellent game viewing climax of your safari, your guide can arrange hot air ballooning over the herds, a visit to a Maasai village, or game walks. Meals and overnight at Governor's Camp.  [b-l-d]

The final full day of game-viewing in the lush and game rich Mara. The gently rolling grassland plains are bisected by a number of great rivers, including the wide and deep Mara. The veldt is usually packed with animals, including virtually all the plains animals found in East Africa. The density of lion is higher here than in any other East African park, and the abundance and ease of finding other predators like hyena, cheetah and leopard is a reflection of how healthy the ecosystem is. Meals and overnight at Governor's Camp.  [b-l-d]

After a final morning of game viewing you fly back to Nairobi arriving around noon and transfer to the Norfolk Hotel. Everyone has a room to repack and relax this afternoon. In the evening you bid goodbye to your guide and tranfser to the airport for your overnight departures to Europe.  [b- - ]

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