This marine and coastal safari combines northern Tanzania's most wildlife intense areas, the idyllic Indian Ocean and East Africa's most pristine coral reefs.  It also incorporates Tanzania's cultural highlight of Zanzibar, with time set aside to explore the distinctly Islamic streets of Stone Town: the Spice Island's capital.

Aqua-Firma believes in experiencing wildlife and wilderness in small groups, which is why the safari section is shared with a maximum of six others in addition to your driver and guide.  You can also opt to make this a private safari experience.

The Serengeti

The Serengeti is undoubtedly one of Africa's wildlife viewing highlights and has featured on countless documentaries such as Big Cat Diary and the Living Planet.    It derives its name from the Masai word siringet which means "endless plain" - a term which at 14,763 square kilometers it well deserves.

Throughout the year the Serengeti thrives with wildlife, providing excellent opportunities to see prides of lions and spotted hyena in clans of up to eighty strong.  Plains game animals including giraffe, buffalo, warthog and antelope such as eland, impala, oryx and dikdik can be seen at any time.  There are also healthy populations of predators such as leopards, side-striped and golden jackals and cheetahs, as well as 520 species of birds.

In addition to the Serengeti's residents, the plains play host to 2 ½ million migrating grazers including around 1.7 million wildebeest, half a million Grant's and Thompson's Gazelles and some 300,000 zebras.  These move en masse between the Serengeti and the Masai Mara in Kenya in response to seasonal pastures.  This is the largest migration on Earth and it concentrates in the Serengeti and the western Ngorongoro between December and July.  By August and September most of the migrating animals are accumulated in the Masai Mara.

The Ngorongoro Crater & Olduvai Gorge

Whilst the Serengeti offers a wide open wilderness, the Ngorongoro concentrates game (and visitors) into a dramatic yet confined crater.  The physical geography of the location is quite unique.  Whilst the density of human life may not be what you hoped for at the crater, it is the focus of a visit to Olduvai Gorge which another volcanic landscape and the 'cradle of mankind'.   This is the place where Louis Leakey discovered remains of our direct ancestors in the form of a skull dated to be 1.75 million years old.

Lake Manyara National Park may be small, but it contains one of Africa's highest concentrations of elephants and the continent's highest biomass of plant and animal per square metre.  Dense bush and tree cover in this park make for a very different game viewing experience than the Serengeti and Ngorongoro.  The lake itself is rich in algae and in turn this attracts large flocks of flamingoes.

Zanzibar and the Indian Ocean

Zanzibar is known as the Spice Island of East Africa, combining African and Middle Eastern Islamic culture.  The cultural centre is the coastal capital, Stone Town, which this is where you explore its winding streets and colourful markets.

We save idyllic beaches and coastlines for Chumbe Island some 7 miles off the coast of Zanzibar.  Chumbe was Tanzania's first marine protected area containing more than 200 species of hard coral and 90% of East Africa's 400 species of fish.  The island is like a living museum with a network of trails above and below the water.  Innovative floating underwater information makes your snorkelling explorations all the more revealing.  The park's rangers can guide you around the rich intertidal rock pools and the pristine coral rag forests of the island where might find the world's largest land crab.  This is the rare Coconut Crab which measures up to a metre in length and as it name suggests, it can crack open a coconut with its bare claws.

For a brief itinerary please Click Here

Prices

Month in 2008	Price pp sharing (£)
Jun, Jul, Aug, Sep	£2,190
Oct	£2,110
Nov & 1st - 14th Dec	£1,990

Note: this experience is not available mid April to 9th June.

Single supplement £350

This safari can also be run on a private basis.  Please enquire for details.
Safaris depart on Sundays @ 1400.

Option to fly one way return on safari Add £125

Price includes
Flight Dar es Salaam to Zanzibar.
Flight Zanzibar to Arusha
All overland and sea transportation starting Dar es Salaam airport and ending at Kilimanjaro airport
All accommodation
Driver / guide on safari
Ranger guidance on Chumbe Island
All meals on safari and on Chumbe Island
Breakfasts in Zanzibar and on Tanzania's east coast
Entry fees to national parks, reserves and museums.
Government taxes, hotel levies and service charges

Price exludes
International flights (see below)
Porterage
Gratuities
Items of a personal nature such as laundry, drinks
Excursions not listed within the itinerary
Visas

Accommodation
In first class game lodges, tented camps, hotels, island ecolodge and private homesteads.

Safari transportation This will be in a 4WD game vehicle in which all passengers will be beside a window and game viewing can also be conducted out from an open roof.

Min group size 2

Max group size 7

Flights  As an ATOL bonded company, this is something we can arrange for you; but you may by all means arrange this yourself.  This itinerary starts in Dar es Salaam and ends at Kilimanjaro airport, although it may be run in the opposite direction if more convenient for you for the Sunday safari start day.

Photographs kindly provided by Guido Cozzi, Javed Jafferji, Michael Poliza, Hal Thompson, Craig Zendel

Tanzania Country page