Serengeti Migration Ride

Arrive at Kilimanjaro International Airport where a driver will meet you. The drive from the airport to the lodge takes about 40 minutes. Your first night is spent at a lodge situated on a golf, polo, and wildlife estate, depending on availability. Meet up with the rest of the group for sundowners and dinner hosted by one of the guides for the safari.

After breakfast drive for ten minutes down the road to catch a late morning flight to Ndutu airstrip in the southern Serengeti. After the flight, depending on where you fly in, the drive will be between 2-4 hours drive  (you may be flown over the Ngorongoro Crater, Lake Manyara or Tarangire National Park, a wonderful opportunity to see these iconic sites from the air), and then you will be met by a safari vehicle at Ndutu. A short wait whilst you are checked-in at the Ngorongoro Conservation area registration post, then set off driving, past impressive rocky outcrops known as “kopjes,” river courses and across the Serengeti’s famous short grass plains. Prime grazing area for migrating wildebeest during the early months of the year, with luck (always dependent on the weather!) the plains may be thick with wildebeest which arrive in their thousands after the rains to make the most of the fresh grass. The plains are also the wildebeests’ favored birthing spot – it is one of nature’s miracles that females delay giving birth until the rains and grass arrive in an effort to ensure their newly born young get the best start in life, a chance to build their strength on lush new grass before setting off on the long march north to Kenya’s Mara plains. About 2-4 hours in all, you eventually arrive at the spot chosen for the first camp in the shade of a lovely flat-topped acacia. Meet the team of support staff, settle into your tents and a welcome lunch in the shade of the mess tent. Then, a short siesta, before meeting the horses and their grooms, and time allowing, an evening ride to try them. Return to camp at sun set for hot showers, drinks by the campfire and
your first dinner together in the bush, before tomorrow when the adventure
really starts

Wake up at about 7am for tea and breakfast in camp, before mounting up at about 8am. Depending on the weather and movement of game, you might ride out for a long morning today, returning to camp for lunch and another ride or game drive in the late afternoon – or you might head out for a full day ride, meeting the backup team for a lunch out in the bush. Either way you should have a good chance of seeing the gathering herds of wildebeest, as well as giraffe browsing in the acacia scrub, zebra and perhaps predators, such as the hyena and jackal. Dinner and night in camp.

Today could be your first move to a new camp. An early wakeup at dawn gives you time to pack up before breakfast, then mount up to a new destination. You’ll ride through areas that have rarely been visited on a horse, perhaps passing Masai herdsmen or their small settlements, where the tribesmen live off the land as they have for centuries. After about 4 hrs of riding, meet the support team for al alfresco lunch in the bush and time to rest in the heat of the day, before heading off again to reach the new camp by tea time. It will be set up before your arrival, and is planned to be spectacularly situated in the middle of the vast open plains, where at peak migration time, the air will be filled with the braying of wildebeest. A cup of tea or a cold beer when you arrive in camp, followed by hot showers and dinner, listening to the sounds of the bush.

From today through Day 8 explore the region, riding across the open plains, into grassy valleys dotted with picturesque granite outcrops, swathes of whistling thorn and typically East African acacia trees. The route and your arrangements each day will vary with the weather and movement of game, but your guide will plan to ride to at least one more camp so you can discover another new area. On one of the afternoons or mornings the horses will be given a rest as you travel by vehicle to visit Olduvai Museum, one of the most important paleoanthropological sites in the world. The museum includes fossils and artifacts of our human ancestors and skeletons of many extinct animals who shared their world. Throughout the safari will will cross by horseback the Olduvai gorge, considered the “cradle of humankind.”

At one point during the safari (weather allowing) you will spend the night in a lightweight fly camp, sleeping under mosquito nets. This morning you jump into the vehicles (there will be a game drive with a picnic lunch on route, crossing the short grass plains and looking out for cats such as cheetah, lion and leopard which thrive here, as well as elephant and the flamingo which gather on the area’s soda lakes. Later in the afternoon you will reach the fly camp in time for sundowners followed by dinner under the stars.

An early wake-up call to say farewell to the horses and crew. The drive this morning will be up the Ngorongoro highlands and breakfast will be on route overlooking the world famous Ngorongoro Crater. After checking out at the gate you head to the African galleria, a great place to buy anything from arts, tanzanite or just a small Tanzanian gift. Shortly after you head to the Manyara Airstrip followed by a 40 minutes flight back towards Arusha, thereafter vehicle transfer back to Kilimanjaro International Airport for onward flights. If you are flying out late in the day and wish to book a dayroom please let us know and we will book this in advance.