Northern Circuit
The national parks of Tanzania fall into three categories defined by geographical proximity. The Northern Circuit consists of Serengeti, Tarangire, Manyara, Arusha, Ngorongoro and Kilimanjaro National Parks.
The Western Circuit consists of Katavi, Mahale Mountains, Gombe Stream and Rubondo Island National Parks National Parks. The Southern Circuit consists of Mikumi, Ruaha, Udzungwa Mountains National Parks and Selous Game Reserve. Below you will find short descriptions of the parks to help you decide the most appropriate itinerary.
THE NORTHERN CIRCUIT
The Northern Circuit is the most frequented by tourist due to two reasons; most of the destinations are fairly close to each other and, secondly, names such as Ngorongoro Crater, Serengeti and Kilimanjaro are all in this Northern Circuit. Due to the fact that all the parks, towns and attractions are within easy reach of one another, one can tour this only a couple of hours in-between the destinations.
Serengeti National Park
Serengeti
Serengeti National Park is the most famous of Tanzania’s national parks. It occupies vast areas, covering 14,763 square kilometers, and wildlife conservation is at a high priority. Serengeti was gazetted in 1951, and accepted by the World heritage Convention as a World Heritage Site and Biosphere Reserve in 1981. With more than 4 million mammals, among them wildebeests, Thomson-gazelles, zebras, impalas, topies, buffaloes, Grants-gazelles, giraffes, and warthogs, Serengeti is an excellent park for game viewing. Every year in May or June, zebras and wildebeest carpet the northern Serengeti, undertaking a circuit of 1000 km as they thunder westwards searching for new pastures, waterholes and young grass of the park corridor. Predators prowl the plains, and Serengeti is the only place where one can witness this annual movement, also called “The race for life”.
The vast grass fields make Serengeti a paradise for predators. There are most hyenas, but the national park is especially known for its lions, and you should be very out of luck not to capture quite a few lions on camera while you are in the park, even the black manned male lions. The first thing you spot after the drive in at Naabi Hill is a vast, flat area of short grass, not a tree in sight for miles. As you approach Seronera in the center of the park, the grass is longer and there are plenty if acacia trees to be seen on the savanna. At the other side of Seronera – in the western corridor in the direction towards Lake Victoria and north towards Lobo and Maasai Mara – the terrain becomes more occupied. Serengeti National Park is set between 900 and 1850 m height. The best time to see this park is between December and May, when the wildebeest migration is in the south, and if you are lucky, you will catch the annual movement of wildebeest and zebras in May or June.
Tarangire National Park
Tarangire
Covering approximately 2,600 square kilometers, Tarangire lies to the south of large open grass plains of the southern Maasai land. Tarangire National Park is named after the Tarangire River, where great flocks of animals gather together in the dry season from June to November. This is the best time to visit Tarangire. Most of the other waterholes are dried out, so the flood is the only place where the animals can extinguish their thirst. After the short rainy season in November, the animals wander in big flocks of wildebeests, zebras, gazelles and hartebeests, outside the borders of the park – some wander off to Lake Manyara, others all the way to Lake Natron close to the border to Kenya. First when the rainy season has passed, the animals turn back to Tarangire, where they arrive during the summer.
Several circuits are possible, Burungi to the west, Lamarkau to the south and Matete along the river. Acacia and baobab trees shelter animals seeking refuge near the river. The park is especially known for its elephants, which are more numerous than in the other northern parks. Apart from this, there are good chances of spotting buffaloes, giraffes, waterbucks, kudus, Oryx, lions, leopards, hyenas, and if you are lucky, you’ll even spot the famous tree climbing pythons! The park has a varied landscape consisting of open grassland with acacia trees and baobab trees, bush steppe, forests and swamps. In the whole area there are tsetse flies, which make the area unsuitable for cattle holding. This explains why Tarangire today has a status as a National Park. Tarangire is not far away from the tarred main road between Arusha and Dodoma. The distance from Arusha to the gate of Tarangire is 115 km, or about 1 hour driving.
Lake Manyara National Park
Manyara
Lake Manyara National Park is another of Tanzania’s small parks with an area of not more than 330square kilometers. The beautiful nature, the varied flora and the exiting fauna make Lake Manyara an obvious place to spend a day or so on the way to Serengeti and Ngorongoro. Lake Manyara is situated in the bottom of the Great Rift Valley, which stretches all the way from Jordan to Mozambique, and it has an intriguing ecology and a greatly varied bird life, perfect for bird watching. 380 species have been registered, and at most times of the year, thousands of flamingoes settle down, feeding on algae as a pink ribbon along the lake.
The vegetation is also very unique, with groundwater forest with high fig and mahogany trees, acacia forest, marsh area and grassland, as well as hot springs in the south. The park is especially famous for its lions, which have a habit of climbing the trees. Except from in the Ruwenzori Park in Uganda, the lions in Lake Manyara are the only ones who have this peculiar behavior, which is inherited from generation to generation. Zoologists believe that they have attributed this habit to avoid the biting flies and the heat at the ground. You are lucky if you spot these lions, though.
But there are good chances of spotting elephants. Lake Manyara used to have the largest concentration in Africa, but because of poaching, the number of animals has decreased. You are also sure find hippos, buffaloes, giraffes, zebras, antelopes, gazelles and a lot of baboons. Lake Manyara is about 120 km (1.5-2 hours) from Arusha on the way to Ngorongoro and Serengeti. One can also take a 1-hour flight from Arusha. This park can be visited year round.
Arusha National Park
Arusha National Park
The park has three distinct zones: Ngurdoto Crater (often described as a mini Ngorongoro), the Momella Lakes, a group of shallow alkaline lakes fed by underground streams, and Mount Meru, one of the most rewarding mountains to climb in Africa. Animals here include buffalo, elephant, hippo, giraffe, zebra and a variety of antelope, blue monkey and black and white colobus monkey, leopard and hyena. Arusha National Park is the only place in Tanzania where you can see black & white guereza monkeys (colobus). So far, three separate game reserves, the different areas of the park enable travellers to experience a lot of different terrain and habitats. All areas are great for bird watching. Ngurdoto Crater, an extinct volcano Caldera. Although there is a ring road, with magnificent views down into the crater lush interior, there is no access to the interior. However, you can climb up to the crater rim through the misty forest inhabited by the nimble black and white colobus monkeys, the mascot of the park.Keep an eye on the long, white bushy tail, which is hanging from the trees. The monkeys are shy, so it is important to be quiet. It is about 55 km from Arusha to the Momella Gate. The roads in the park are steep, so the car must be in a good condition. Hideouts have been created for observation. Arusha National Park is the only park where you can have a walking safari in the Northern Circuit of Tanzania. The park can be visited year round, but in March and April it takes a 4×4-wheel drive to get around the park.
Ngorongoro Conservation Area
Nearly two million years ago, Ngorongoro Peak towered almost as high as Kilimanjaro. Both these mountains formed the highest peaks
Ngorongoro
in Africa at that time. The Ngorongoro Peak collapsed beneath the volcano to form a caldera, the largest unbroken and unflooded in the world today. Although a geological feature formed by the withdrawal of a molten in this manner is correctly called a caldera, many people traditionally used the term crater, and hence Ngorongoro Caldera is described as a crater in all records available.
The animals make the Ngorongoro Crater one of Africa’s major attractions. The crater is also known as “The eighth wonder of the world”. Around 300000 animals live in the bottom of the crater, the number changes with seasons, because some animals migrate towards the Serengeti. The largest group is the wildebeests, but there are plenty of zebras, gazelles and buffaloes. In the forests and the swamped areas one can find hippos, rhinos, elephants, waterbucks, baboons and monkeys. Ngorongoro is one of the few places you are quite sure of spotting a rhino. In the 1960`s the crater had 100 rhinos permanently living there, but because of poaching, the number was decreased to under 20 in a few years. Now the illegal shooting appears to be under control, so the numbers of rhinos are stabile and even rising. The rhinos are protected by a number of rangers, and is ” it is better that 10 rangers die protecting the rhinos, than one rhino being shot.” There are also ideal circumstances for the predators living in the crater. With around 100 lions and 400 hyenas, the crater has the largest number per km^2 in East Africa. Among the male lions one can find a number of black-manned ones. There are also good chances of spotting jackals and serval cats, which hunt in the swamps and close to the waterholes. In Ngorongoro you have the best chance of spotting the “Big Five”, namely lion, leopard, buffalo, elephant and rhino.
Ngorongoro Crater Map
In the flat, open surroundings the animals are easy to spot, and they are more used to cars than animals in Serengeti
and other national parks. This means that one can come quite close to the animals with the camera. The only thing, which might ruin the experience, is to come inside the crater with far too high expectations. You can’t find rhinos on every road-turn, and the lions are not paid to hunt while the tourists watch and take photos. It takes a Land Rover or another 4-wheel-drive to manage the steep road descending and ascending the crater. It is a good idea to start at sunrise, so one can spend the entire day inside the crater. Most people prefer to have lunch at the picnic-area in the crater, where the vultures dive and sometimes manage to snatch the food out of your hands.
The Ngorongoro Crater is a part of the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, which consists of several volcanic mountains and craters – altogether an area of 8288 square kilometers. Until 1959 this area was a part of Serengeti National Park. Out of consideration to the local Maasai, it changed its status, so that it now both protect the animals and the Maasai’s rights: They are allowed to take their cattle down the crater to get water, but they can not stay inside permanently. The cattle must get out of the crater the same day. From Arusha it is about 180km (4-5 hours depending on the road) to the Ngorongoro crater. Follow the road to Serengeti past Lake Manyara through the trading city Karatu. One can also take a one-hour flight from Arusha to Ngorongoro.
The first view over the crater is at Heroes Point (2286m). Here there is a monument dedicated to the park employees, who have been killed in the battle against poachers. A little further you find a monument over the German professor Bernhard Grzimek and his son Michael, who with their scientific work, movies and books contributed greatly to promoting the nature of Northern Tanzania. Michael was killed in a plane accident in Ngorongoro in 1959.
Mount Kilimanjaro
Mount Kilimanjaro
KILEMAKYARO – the original name of this world famous mountain – means “hard to conquer”. This name was difficult for foreigners to pronounce, so as time passed, Kilemakyaro became known as Kilimanjaro. At 5896 meters, Kilimanjaro is Africa’s highest mountain and the highest freestanding mountain in the world. Its permanently snowcapped peak rises from the equator, only 290 km from a tropical coastline, defying all conventions maintaining that snow is found only in higher altitudes. The almost 6 km high top was made after a series of volcanic eruptions about 1 million years ago. Kilimanjaro is still active. As late as in the 1940’s, activity was registered.
The base of this immense mountain has a diameter of about 40 miles. Elephants, leopards, lions and colobus monkeys are among the resident animals in this park. The encircling rain forests ensures the fertility of the lush, lower lying shamba country, where the Chagga cultivate their coffee, maize and bananas.
While Kilimanjaro is wonderful to watch when the Uhuru peak is clear of clouds, the most fascinating experience is to hike to the summit. The preferred route is Marangu trail through tropical rain forest, moorland and alpine desert to the snowcapped summits of Kibo, Uhuru and Mawenzi. The 18-mile trek takes five to six days, if you are well fit, you can complete the trek within four days. Local people have always trekked up and down the mountain looking for medical plants and in fulfillment of traditional Chagga rituals. In 1889, the first Europeans reached the summit with help of native guides and porters.
The climb is definitely a physical challenge, and there are risks involved, but if you are fit and aware of conditions, which may occur, trekking Kilimanjaro will be an experience of a lifetime. In 1976, an 11-year-old made it to the summit, and in 1988, an 88-year-old reached the peak. Enjoy local beer with the team, grilled bananas, and don’t forget your certificate! The best times to climb Kilimanjaro are January, February, July, August, November and December. April and May are the most difficult times to climb the mountain weather wise, when extensive cloud cover hinders visibility and snow and rainfall are common.