Intrepid Guerba- Game Parks and Community Projects
Pricing| Travel Information | Itinerary | Other Information
Basic Information
- November 25 - December 2, 2008
- 7- day Safari includes Serengeti National Park, Ngorongoro Crater, visits with Amani Street Children and the Kilimanjaro Village Education Project team (KVEP)
- Intrepid/Guerba adventure & discovery holidays
- Minimum goup size 5
- Maximum group size 22
- Reservations Contact: Caroline-carolinet@intrepidguerba.co.uk
Pricing
- Per person (sharing) £1180
- Per person (single accommodation) £1380
Travel Information
- Pick up and drop off locations will be decided with your tour operator
- Travel will be in minibuses or land Rover type vehicles
- Intrepid Guerba is a partner to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office’s ‘Know Before You Go’ Campaign & would like to draw your attention to the advice at www.fco.gov.uk/knowbeforeyougo
Itinerary
Day 1. You will be collected from the Hotel in Moshi and we will drive to Mto Wa Mbu. En route we will stop for lunch in Arusha, at the Impala hotel. Drive to Lake Manyara Hotel, with its wonderful views over the national park and rift valley.
Accommodation: Lake Manyara Hotel.
Meals: Dinner
Day 2. This morning we are up early, packed up and on the move to Serengeti National Park through the Ngorongoro Conservation Area. In the Serengeti, millions of plains animals feed on the grasses - an unforgettable spectacle - and they attract all the major predators: lions, cheetahs and leopards. The Serengeti is justly famous for the quality of its game viewing and we spend our time here exploring the huge plains, rocky outcrops (kopjes) and sparsely wooded river valleys. On game drives, we hope to see wildebeest, gazelles, zebras and giraffes, in addition to the predators already mentioned. There will be game on these magnificent plains but mainly in the north of the park.
Accommodation: Seronera Lodge
Meals: Breakfast, Picnic Lunch, & Dinner
Day 3. We continue our game drives in the Serengeti.
Accommodation: Seronera Lodge
Meals: Breakfast, Lunch, & Dinner
Day 4. Today we leave the Serengeti, and head back to the Ngorongoro Conservation Area. Visit Olduvai Gorge on the way. This steep-sided ravine is a truly ancient site where our ancestors lived over a million years ago. Some of the oldest humanoid skeletons were discovered here in the 1950s by the Leakeys, and there is a small museum containing many of the fossils and relics that were found in the area. 
Afterwards, we head up onto the Ngorongoro Crater, a huge, perfectly intact volcanic caldera that is home to some 30,000 animals. The night is spent at a lodge on the rim of the crater, where spectacular views of the surrounding region can be had.
Once we exit the Serengeti it will take us 3 hours driving ( 70Kms) to get to our camp on the rim of the crater.
Accommodation: Ngorongoro Wildlife Lodge
Meals: Breakfast, Picnic Lunch, & Dinner
Day 5. We spend half the day in Crater then drive back to Mto Wa Mbu. The crater floor offers excellent game-viewing all year round and the photographic opportunities here are unrivalled. We spend a memorable half-day on safari in this unique wildlife environment, where we hope to see endangered black rhinos, lions, elephants and much more.
Accommodation: Ngorongoro Wildlife Lodge.
Meals: Breakfast, Lunch, & Dinner
Day 6. En route to the Marangu Hotel, Moshi, we take a visit to the Amani Children’s Home. ‘Amani’ is the Swahili word for peace. Amani Children’s Home is a small non-governmental, not-for-profit organisation that runs a residential home for orphans and street children on the base of Mt Kilimanjaro in Tanzania. 
Amani tries to help these affected children by giving them a safe home, attempting to reunite them with their families and offering them a variety of educational opportunities including Street Education, Social Work/Reunification, Education, Health and Upendo (Love) Program. To learn more about the program before you leave check out www.amanikids.org
The drive is initially back to Arusha (2.5 hours) and then onto Moshi (1.25 hours). Lunch in Arusha at the Impala Hotel. Arrive at Amani around 13.30 hours. Spend 2 hours there.
Accommodation: The Marangu Hotel
Meals: Breakfast, Lunch, & Dinner
Day 7. Today we are taken on a tour of the village of Mshiri; home to the Kilimanjaro Village Education Project (KVEP). The KVEP is a registered charity that aims to improve the physical state of the primary schools in the Marangu area. 
It also provides teaching assistance in the form of gap year students and has founded a vocational training centre where local people can learn practical skills. Visit Village Education Project (see kiliproject.org) and walk through the villages. We will have lunch in village. This will be 6 or 7 hour visit, an insight into what life is really like in Tanzania.
We will return to the designated drop off location by early evening.
Meals: Breakfast & Lunch
Other Information
* SERENGETI NATIONAL PARK
The Serengeti is Tanzania’s largest park, covering an area of 14,700 sq kms. Serengeti’s main fame lies in its 3 million plains game animals that provide the greatest wildlife spectacle anywhere.
A unique phenomenon of the Serengeti is the annual migration. Hundreds of thousands of wildebeest and zebra trek the route annually, in some places simply grazing, in other places rushing madly across rivers and plains. The game most likely to be seen in the Serengeti, in addition to the wildebeest and zebra, are gazelle, lion, cheetah, warthog, hyena, hippo and ostrich. In all, there are more than thirty-five species of plains animals, as well as a great profusion of bird life. The landscape changes within the park from the vast treeless central plains to thick scrub and forest in the north. Linking these areas is the savannah, dotted with acacia trees and magnificent rock outcrops. Full advantage has been taken of these unusual rock formations to create architecturally unique lodges that blend into the landscape.
*NGORONGORO CRATER AND OLDUVAI GORGE
Ngorongoro Crater is indisputably one of Africa’s most beautiful nature reserves and is certainly one of the most spectacular settings to be found anywhere. It is the largest intact crater in the world (there are five damaged ones larger). The rim is about 20 kms in diameter and the floor of the crater covers some 250 sq kms. Over 30,000 animals including elephant, lion, gazelle, wildebeest, zebra, cheetah, rhino and countless types of birds live here. Within the Ngorongoro conservation area is the historic site of Olduvai Gorge. Under the guidance of Dr Leakey, the site yielded the remains of prehistoric elephants, giant horned sheep and enormous ostriches. The most important find, though, is the skull of the ‘Nutcracker man’ that dates from around 1.75 million years ago.
*ARUSHA
Arusha sits in lush, green countryside at the foot of Mt Meru (4556m). With many coffee, wheat and maize estates surround the town, mainly tended by the Wameru and Waarusha tribes. The town’s market is alive with colour, its stall piled high with fresh fruit and vegetables. The craft shops in the vicinity of the clock tower offer a wide range of superb ebony makonde carvings as well as malachite jewellery and bright local fabric.
*TANZANIA
Population: 30 million approx. Area: 945,087 sq kms.
Capital: Dodoma. (Dar es Salaam, Mwanza, Zanzibar Town, Tanga and Arusha are the principal towns). People: 120 groups, mainly of Bantu origin. No dominant tribe. Religion: Christianity, Islam, Hindu and traditional religions. Language: Swahili is the national and official language. English is widely spoken in business circles. Climate:Tropical with variations according to altitude. Rainy season April-May and Nov-Dec. Warmer on the coast and cooler in upland regions. Temperatures range from 23-30C(73-80F) in Dar es Salaam. Currency: Tanzanian shillings (TAS) - 100 cents
*HISTORY
The unearthing by Louis Leakey of ‘Nutcracker Man’, indicates that Tanzania has been the scene of human habitation since the dawn of mankind. This discovery at Olduvai Gorge is amongst the oldest human fossils ever found. More recently during the 1st millennium AD, Bantu immigrants from the north brought with them iron workings and pottery making skills. Active colonisation began in the 8th century in Kilwa and Zanzibar with Arabs from Oman. Two centuries later Persians arrived on the coast and built prosperous stone cities of which remnants are still visible. The 11th and 12th centuries saw the evolution of the Swahili language from the intermarriage of Africans, Arabs, and Persians. Trade quickly developed in ivory, rhinoceros horn and coconut oil. Trading flourished in the 19th century with copper and gold from the interior and the notorious slave trade. Reports from early European explorers and missionaries led to the Sultan Baighash of Zanzibar being forced to outlaw slavery in 1873. Along the coastal regions, however, it continued illegally until colonial times. In the late 19th century the mainland was declared a protectorate of German East Africa and Zanzibar became a British protectorate. After World War I, the Germans were expelled and East Africa came under a League of Nations Mandate to the British, who renamed it Tanganyika. Tanganyika gained independence in 1961 and the following year was proclaimed a Republic within the British commonwealth. Tanganyika and Zanzibar united in 1964 to become the United Republic of Tanzania.
*ECONOMY
Agriculture is the mainstay of the economy, contributing almost 60% of the GDP and as much as 80% of the export earnings, as well as employing 90% of the total labour force. Major exports include coffee, cotton, minerals and tea. Cloves from Zanzibar are also important. Manufacturing accounts for approximately 6% of the GDP and is dominated by government owned concerns. Mining accounts for less than 1% of the GDP, most of which comes from diamond sales.
PEOPLE
*CHAGGA The Chagga live on and around Mount Kilimanjaro. They are expert farmers and coffee growers. The cultivation of this valuable export crop has become the main source of their wealth. One of the most fascinating aspects of traditional Chagga life is the use of water resources for irrigation. Kilimanjaro is the source of many rivers and the Chagga long ago developed a system of furrows to draw off water at high levels and divert it over long distances. The irrigation system makes the Chagga homestead a lush garden. Seventeen varieties of banana grow on Kilimanjaro and these provide the staple element of the Chagga diet.
*MASAI The Masai are probably the most famous of all the African tribes. They are a pastoral people noted for drinking cattle blood mixed with milk, a mainstay of their diet. Their love of cattle is legendary and based on religious beliefs. They are proud people, given to superior airs. Tall and slender, they carry themselves elegantly, dressed in brilliant red cloth with both men and women adorned with beadwork and metal jewellery.
*SWAHILI Swahili is the name given not only to East Africa’s widespread language but also to some of the people living along the coast. They form a collection of tribes who share a common culture and language, but the boundaries between the Swahili and their neighbours are never definitely clear. The Swahili do not stand alone as a distinct ethnic or tribal entity but form an element in a wider mixed coastal society. Little is known of the groups who were among their ancestors - the Diba, Debuli, and others from Persia and India. The Swahili emerged as distinct people with their own way of life by the 12th century at the latest. They have always produced millet and rice for their own consumption, as well as coconut products and fruit.
