Kilimanjaro Summit, Safari & Zanzibar

Welcome to Kilimanjaro! After your plane lands at Kilimanjaro International Airport, you will be met and transferred to your overnight accommodations at the Dik Dik Hotel. Get some well-deserved rest in preparation for the exciting climb to follow.

This day is for relaxing and acclimatizing before your climb starts. Use this time to organize your climbing gear, meet your fellow climbers, and start your journal. Should you need to visit Arusha for any last-minute items, wish to visit neighboring Usa Village, or a local school, there will be time available to do so. There will be a pre-climb briefing in the early evening.

Machame Gate (5900 feet) to Machame Hut (10,000 feet). Approx:5-6 hrs walk

You set off from the Machame Gate (5900 feet), around 11:00, climbing through rainforest with giant ferns and moss-covered trees, to the first campsite. The Machame camp, like all campsites on this route, is a shared campsite open to all registered climbers. Basic facilities include pit toilets and ground pump water.

Machame Hut (10,000 feet) to Shira Hut (12,467 feet) (Approx. 5 hrs walk)

After an early breakfast and tea, you head on a steep and twisting path into sparser terrain. At the en-route lunch stop, you are treated to fantastic views of the eroded peaks of Shira thrusting the
Moorland ridges into the wispy cloud line. At the top of the Shira ridge, the highest point of the day is reached (12,500 feet), before you take a slight descent to Shira camp. Shira Cave Campsite offers fantastic views in every direction; the soft light of the sunset reveals Shira’s peaks and plateau, Mt. Meru in the distance floating in a golden sea of clouds, and shimmering reflections off Kibo’s ice fields.

Shira Hut (12,467 feet) To Barranco Hut (12,975 feet) Via Lava Tower (15,125 feet) (Approx: 6 hrs walk)

After breakfast at Shira Camp, you start the day’s climb walking directly towards Kibo up a broad rocky ridge. The barren-looking Shira plateau stretches out to your left and the snow-capped summit looks noticeably closer. Vegetation disappears as you climb over 4000m into the desert zone. The highest point of the day is reached at Lava Tower, a 50m high mound of solidified lava sticking up from the rolling ridges around the summit cone. From the tower, you take a gentle descent to the Barranco Hut Campsite.

Barranco Hut (12,975 feet) to Karanga Valley (12,975 feet) (Approx.: 3 hrs walk)

The day’s first and main obstacle is the imposing-looking lava face of the great Barranco Wall. After a short walk across the valley floor, the craggy, sheer-looking wall looms overhead. After 30 minutes on easier, but still steep slopes, you finally reach the top of the wall at an altitude of 4180m, your highest point for today. The reward is your best and closest view of Kibo’s glaciers. To the left, perched on top of the sheer cliff of the western breach, the diamond glacier ‘drips’ over the cliff with enormous icicle tendrils reaching down to the Balletto Glacier on the shelf below. To the right, the Heim, Kersten, and Decken glaciers slump over their uneven rock bed. After traversing a series of valleys, you arrive at Karranga Valley, a barren landscape with a few hardy plants sheltered in gaps under and between rocks. You descend to a flat area towards the head of the valley above a cascading stream, where your camp is again set up for you when you arrive. After a welcome lunch, you can lounge around in the sun resting, reading, and taking in the scenery as your body acclimates. Dinner and overnight: Karanga Valley Campsite.

Karranga Valley (12,975 feet) to Barafu Hut (15,125 feet) (Approx.: 3 hrs walk)

The morning’s short hike will take you out of the valleys and up a steep boulder-strewn path to Barafu Ridge. You arrive at Barafu Hut Camp around noon after 3 hours of walking. The leisurely day at camp will give you time to acclimate and your body time to rest for the final push early tomorrow. The cloud shawl around Kibo and Mawenzi peaks usually clear by mid-afternoon, revealing spectacular views in all directions. An early dinner is prepared at 5 pm and then you will go to bed to get some sleep before your wake-up call at 11:00 pm. Wake up arrives with tea.

Barafu Hut (15,125 feet) to Mweka Hut (10,170 feet) Via Uhuru Peak (19,340 feet ) (Approx.: 12 hrs walk)

The Summit climb starts at midnight, under a ceiling of stars. The first goal is Stella Point at 19,009 feet, about a 6-hour hike. The pace will be slow and measured, with short breaks about every hour to help with acclimatization and cut off before the below-freezing cold creeps in. In the darkness, you will pass Rebman Glacier and Mawebzi Peak. At Stella Peak, you will be rewarded with an awesome view of the extinct volcano’s huge crater with the ash pit rising in the center. As the sun rises over an endless sea of clouds, its light reaching in all directions around you and broken only by the smaller peak of Mt. Meru in the distance, you begin the final hour ascent around the gently sloped crater rim towards Uhuru Peak. Upon reaching the highest point of Mt. Kilimanjaro, Uhuru Peak, at 5,895 meters, you can finally say that you are on the “Roof of Africa”. You breathe in with satisfaction, sign the elite summit log, capture the feat with some pictures, and soon begin your descent, as the cold and high altitude take their toll. The whole eastern sky is lit by a golden, fiery glow. The horizon is visible so far in either direction that the curve of the earth can be seen. Physical relief comes as high altitude discomfort is soon dispelled by the quick 2 to 3-hour descent to Barafu and the air is warmed by the exposed sun. There you are rewarded with a short nap and a hearty lunch, before you continue your descent to Mweka Hut Campsite (10170 feet), approximately 3 hours. This comfortable altitude around the cloudline will allow you to get some much-deserved rest.

Mweka Hut (10,170 feet) to Mweka Gate (5905 feet) (Approx.: 4 hrs walk)

On your final morning, after an early breakfast, you start to descend from the camp. Discretional tipping of your guide, cook, and porters is customary at this time. You descend through the rainforest. After you reach the gate, you will go to the park office to sign out and receive your summit certificates. A car will be waiting to take you to your hotel.

After breakfast, depart for Tarangire National Park in your four-wheel- drive vehicles. Tarangire retains a real air of undiscovered Africa. Perhaps it is the vast number of baobab trees that first catch your eye as you enter the park. There are a fantastic number of colorful birds that swoop and strut along the rough paths throughout the year. Because the park extends through two game-controlled areas, wildlife moves freely throughout. On arrival, look for wildlife with your cameras loaded and your binoculars at the ready, you will head out for your game drive. The drivers know the best spottings from the morning, and this will determine which direction you will head. This is not an amusement park, so you never know where the animals may be or what they will be doing. Later, depart for Ngorongoro Crater for overnight.

Today you will spend another half day in the crater on a drive in this fascinating wildlife amphitheater. The Ngorongoro Crater is actually a caldera formed from a sunken volcano, hosting a unique cross-section of ecosystems, from soda lake to savannah, and home to almost every major species of African mammal.   Later in the afternoon, you will have an optional guided hike along the rim of the crater into the Melaga depression. End the roughly two- to three-hour hike with a stunning view over the Serengeti short grass plains.

Travel further to the west toward the Serengeti. On the way, you will stop at Olduvai Gorge to visit the site where Mary and Louis Leakey first discovered the remains of Zinjanthropus bosei, a distant ancestor of man believed to be 1.8 million years old. They also found Australopithecus, a species that became extinct about a million years ago, as well as fossilized footprints that date back 3.6 million years. From here, the predator-rich plains of the Serengeti reveal themselves as you go on a game drive through the park toward the central plains, arriving at your bush camp just before dusk. T he Serengeti is a vast plain of approximately 5,750 square miles and is full of different features, predators, prey, and several species of birds. Your driver-guide will choose your route based on his extensive knowledge of the park and local conditions. Your trip might include a drive along the banks of the Grumeti River in search of basking lions, tracking cheetahs through the Gol Kopjes, or hunting leopards (with a camera, of course) along the Seronera River. Dinner and overnight at Serengeti Kati Kati Camp.

Enjoy a full day of game viewing in the most famous National Park in Africa. Explore the sections, where at this time of the year around two million wildebeest, zebra, and a vast assortment of other plains animals congregate to feast on the nutrient-rich grasses growing with the developing rains. You will probably agree that this is the most impressive and dramatic wildlife spectacle on earth. T here is an optional balloon safari available ($650), but it must be booked in advance. Lunches will be picnics during your game drives. You’ll overnight two nights at Mara Kati Kati Camp.

After breakfast, you will depart and head for Arusha, where you will have lunch prior your onward flight to the “spice’ island of Zanzibar, offering beaches for snorkeling, world-class diving, natural wonders, and a rich and storied history.  After clearing local customs in Zanzibar, you will be met and transferred to the Warere Beach Hotel at the northern end of the island for some rest and relaxing.

If you choose not to extend your stay to Zanzibar, an evening transfer to the airport for the flight home.

The next several days you have to spend at your leisure, relax or partake of the many available activities offered at or in the vicinity of the resort. All activities are arranged at your own expense.

While in Zanzibar, a visit of Stone Town will afford you an opportunity to walk through the market to see and taste some of the fruits available, such as Mabungo and Baobab fruits. Visit “kuku,” the chicken market, and the fish market where many exotic fish are sold. The fish market is best visited in the morning when the catch comes in. The Palace Museum holds fascinating artifacts of the long colonial imperial past. It helps to have a guide to provide interpretation of what you are seeing and the same is true of the many historic buildings. Visit the Darjani market on Creek Road, where the locals go to shop. The Forodhani Gardens, located along the seafront opposite the old Fort in Stone Town, are lovely and you can taste all different kinds of foods at its large outdoor market on an evening stroll. Alternately, 236 Hurumzi has a very good restaurant where you might want to dine. Your departure day from Zanzibar may be the best day to visit Stone Town and it’s surrounding prior to your drop off at the airport.

Otherwise, you might choose to go snorkeling or diving, visit a spice plantation or go to the Jozani Forest to see the endangered Red Colobus monkeys (an endemic species that only exists in Zanzibar), the Aders’ Duiker and the Zanzibar Servaline Genet.

Today you end your journey with final goodbyes to  Zanzibar island prior to your transfer to Dar es Salaam for your homeward-bound flight. You might consider spending a portion of this day in Stone Town again, as it is on your way out or, if you have not already done so, go on a spice plantation tour.