East Africa

Fly into Nairobi, The “ Green City in the Sun” with wide tree lined streets and spacious parkland suburbs. Stay overnight and experience the capital of Kenya. Next morning fly to Masai Mara National Reserve, 390 Km from Nairobi in the southwest corner of the country, a slice of Africa, as seen by Hollywood (much of the film Out of Africa was shot there)- a vast rolling plain beneath the Mara escarpment striped black once a year by millions of wildebeest and zebra migrating north from the Serengeti plains in neighboring Tanzania. This spectacle is probably best seen from one of he hot air balloons operating from Governor’s Camp. (Migration season July/ August).
Accommodation units include tented camps/ lodges the best being the And Beyond ones with luxury facilities. Masai tribes people live on the reserve’s fringes. They are often keen to sell traditional bead necklaces and decorated gourds to tourists in a return of a small fee. Fly to Nairobi and then to Lake Manyara National Reserve in Tanzania via Kilimanjaro, Africa’s highest mountain (5895m). Lake Manyara is famous for its elephants and tree-climbing lions. The wall of the Great Rift Valley forms a backdrop to the park, before which lies forest, open grassland, swamp and the soda lake. Wildlife includes lions, herds of buffalo, baboons, elephant, rhino, impala, giraffe, leopard, zebra, bushbuck, reedbuck, waterbuck and blue & velvet monkeys. Mayara is also noted for its bird life, particularly the flamingoes. By surface transfer moving further to Ngorongoro Crater, a collapsed volcano forming a crater that is 610 m. deep, 20 km in diameter, covering an area of 311 sq. Km. The crater accounts for just 1/10 of the conservation area, which is home to almost every species of African plains mammal and particularly well known for the endangered black rhino.
Through the Olduvai Gorge, you may reach Serengeti National Park, the finest in Africa with 35 species of plain dwelling animals, including wildebeest and zebra, which feature in the spectacular Serengeti migration and also an extensive selection of bird life.

Flights into and out of Nairobi via Dubai on Emirates. Optional extension to Zanzibar, otherwise known as the “ Spice Island” with the old stone town, a labyrinth of narrow winding streets lined with exotic shops, bazaars, colonial mansions, mosques, and squares. There are also many superb beaches, particularly on the east coast.

Optional extensions also to Seychelles or Mauritius in the Indian Ocean.

Health requirements necessary: Yellow fever vaccination and malaria prophylaxis.