11 Days Tanzania Southern Circuit Adventures

Day 1: Arrival/Dar es Salaam

Picked up at Dar es Salaam International airport and transferred to Medditeraneo hotel overnight on a bed and breakfast basis. This hotel is set around beautiful landscaped African gardens, bursting with tropical flowers and shaded by palm trees, the cool interiors of our rustic cottage-style rooms offer welcome relief from the Tanzania sun, while the restaurant dishes up gorgeous Mediterranean cuisine.

Day 2: Selous game reserve

After breakfast drive to Selous game reserve, with packed lunch en route. In the evening you will do boat safari then head to Selous Kinga lodge for dinner and overnight. With an area of around 50,000sq km,(5% of Tanzania’s land surface) Selous game reserve is one of the large protected areas in the world.

Its size is stunning, bigger than Switzerland or Denmark, uninhabited and little touched by human interference. Visitors, therefore, find themselves in a pristine wilderness far away from the trodden tourist routes. Its wildlife (including some few remaining Black rhinos and Wild dogs) are very spectacular.

Day 3: Selous game reserve

Today you will have a full day of game drive in Selous game reserve, with picnic lunch. In the late afternoon, you will return to Selous Kinga lodge for dinner and overnight.

Day 4: Selous game reserve

After breakfast depart from the northern circuit to the southern part of the reserve doing a full day of game drive. In the late afternoon, you will continue to Sable Mountain lodge for dinner and overnight.

Day 5: Mikumi national park

After early breakfast depart with picnic lunch and drive to Mikumi national park across the beautiful Uluguru mountains, enjoying people and culture. Dinner and overnight will be at  Mikumi safari lodge. With an area of about 3230km (Tanzania’s 4^th largest Park); Mikumi is one of the most popular parks for both tourists and local people.

The park is framed the Uluguru mountains to the northeast and the Udzungwa Mountains to the south-west and the Selous Game reserve to the South; the park itself consists mainly of Miombo woodland and although the scenery gets a little tedious after a while, the sighting of plain games like Impala, Buffalo, Zebra, Giraffe, wildebeest, Elephants, Hippo, and Crocodiles are common enough.

One of the most principal features of Mikumi park is the Mkata River flood plain,(an area of lush vegetation which particularly attracts a lot of wildlife.) The absence of Gazelles in this Park is curious – it seems their ecological niche is occupied by Impala.

Mikumi and Selous game reserves are lying on the same ecosystem, which covers a large part of central & Southern Tanzania. (This ecosystem stretches to within 150 km of the Mozambique border, whose Niassa Game Reserve was formerly part of it).

Predators which can be seen in Mikumi, include Lion, Leopards (more difficult to see), black-backed Jackal (can sometimes be seen in the evening) and the African Civet who is the nocturnal visitor in most of the Camps. Mikumi’s birdlife is profuse, with over 400 species recorded to date, many of them Eurasian migrants, present between October and April

Day 6: Udzungwa mountains national park

After breakfast you will have morning game drive to Mikumi park with packed lunch then drive to Udzungwa for dinner and overnight at Hondo Hondo tented camp. The Udzungwa Mountains are almost unearthly.

An enchanted forest of leafy glades, flecked with sun shine where fungus, lichens , moss and ferns ingratiate themselves into every damp crevices, it is at once both vivid detail and larger than life.

A new variety of African violet was discovered in the shelter of 30m high tree. It is a hot house nurturing species found nowhere else on earth, a secret bank account of precious genetic stock. Of it six types of primate, two are endemic the Iringa red colobus monkey and the sanje crested Mangabey, not discovered until 1979.

Four previously unknown birds including the rufous winged sun bird and new species of partridge like francolin make the Tanzania richest forest bird habitat among the three most important bird conservation areas on the continent.

One of the East Africa great forests, this undisturbed habitat undoubtedly has new treasures yet to reveal. A link in the chain of East Africa eastern arch mountains, Udzungwa is made for hiking and climbing on the trails through the rain forest and along the escarpments.

The plateau is natural tower top, with a view of sugar plantations against the patch work of grassland and mountain forest extending over 100km. but the centre piece is the sanje River, which reinvents itself as the spectacular waterfall, plunging 170m through the forest to land in a mist in the valley below. Visit the udzungwa year round, but be prepared for rain any time

Day 7: Udzungwa mountains national park

After breakfast, you will collect your picnic lunch and do a 4 to 6 hrs hike to Sanje water falls. In the late afternoon you will return to Hondo hondo teted camp for  dinner and overnight.

Day 8: Ruaha national park

After breakfast drive to Ruaha National Park with packed lunch, pass by Iringa local market. In the late afternoon you will visit a traditional Maasai village, then continue to Ruaha hilltop lodge for dinner and overnight. Ruaha is the largest national park in Tanzania, covering an area of about 22,000 square kilometers; here wildlife is concentrating along the cascading great RuahaRiver, which is the park’s blood.

Home to hippos and crocodiles snacking on the school of fish, it is a flooded terrain after the rain dwindling to precious pools surrounded by blinding sweep of gazelles risks their lives for a sip of its waters…a permanent hunting grounds for lions, Leopards, hunting dogs, hyenas, and Jackals; lack enough you can also have the chance to see both leaser and greater kudus, Sable, and Roan antelopes here. Ruaha is the only protected area in the world where flora and fauna of eastern and southern Africa overlaps.

Day 9 &10: Ruaha national park

You will spend two full days of game drive Ruaha national park. All meals and overnight will be at Ruaha river lodge. This lodge occupies a unique and privileged position along the banks of this great river and blends seamlessly into its surroundings. Game is drawn to the river from the neighboring hills and guests can witness the great wildlife dramas unfold from the comfort and protection of their self-contained natural stone and thatch bandas. For a relaxing day you can stay sitting on your veranda with a cold drink and wait for the game to come next to you.

Day 11: Departure

After breakfast, you will have a game en route to the airstrip for your flight back to Dar es salaam and connect your international flight.