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Western Arc Tour (10 Days)

Tour Price

XX-Day: North-East Circuit
$2000
$ 1500
00*
  • 2 persons: -10%
  • >2 persons: -20%
  • >5 persons: -30%
Details
* Indicative costs per person, excluding international airline tickets
Popular

This tour is made for active, adventurous travellers who want more than a classic safari.

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Included

  • All accomodations
  • 24/7 service
  • English-speaking guide
  • Game drives
  • Pickup and transfer from/to airport
  • 8 days
  • Park and crater fees
  • Full board during safari
  • Reservation costs

Excluded

  • Visas
  • Travel insurance
  • International flights

Route

Day 1Arrival at Dar es Salaam
Day 2Katavi National Park
Day 3Katavi National Park
Day 4Lake Tanganyika
Day 5Lake Tanganyika
Day 6Mahale Mountains National Park
Day 7Mahale Mountains National Park
Day 8Lake Rukwa
Day 9Lake Rukwa
Day 10Dar es Salaam

More Details

Day-1: Let the adventure begin

Dar es Salaam

  • Arrive, transfer to a simple guesthouse in the Msasani neighbourhood
  • Briefing dinner with your Apis guide — understand the philosophy of what lies ahead
  • Early night: tomorrow you fly into a different century

Day-2: The Wild West

Katavi National Park

  • Morning flight Dar → Katavi via Tabora (light aircraft, ~3.5 hrs)
  • Land on a grass airstrip in the middle of nowhere — no reception desk, no welcome drink
  • Afternoon game drive: Katavi holds Tanzania’s largest hippo and buffalo concentrations
  • In dry season, thousands of animals compress around the last remaining waterholes — scenes from another era
  • Camp setup by the Katavi River as the sun drops fast

Day-3: Watch your steps

Katavi National Park

  • Pre-dawn walking safari with an armed ranger — track lion and leopard on foot
  • Cross the Piti floodplains at first light: extraordinary bird density, crocodile, wild dog
  • Katavi receives fewer than 1,000 visitors per year — you will likely see no other vehicle all day
  • Midday rest in the shade; the heat is serious and beautiful
  • Afternoon drive to the Chada plain — hippo pool at sunset

Day-4: The Tongwe Tribe

Lake Tanganyika

  • Drive west from Katavi to the lakeshore village of Mpimbwe (~2 hrs)
  • Full day with a Tongwe family — not a performance, a genuine exchange
  • Learn traditional fishing techniques on Lake Tanganyika, the world’s second deepest lake
  • Cook together using local ingredients: cassava, fresh dagaa fish, coconut
  • Evening storytelling around the fire — Tongwe oral history stretches back centuries
  • All community fees paid directly to the village, not through any third party

Day-5: Steering Across The Lake

Lake Tanganyika

  • Depart Mpimbwe by motorised wooden boat north along Lake Tanganyika (~4 hrs)
  • The lake stretches 673 km — you cross an inland sea between Congo and Tanzania
  • Arrive Mahale Mountains National Park: jungle mountains plunge directly into the lake
  • Afternoon snorkelling in the lake’s crystal-clear water — 350 endemic cichlid species
  • Camp on the lakeshore as the Mahale peaks turn gold behind the forest canopy

Day-6: Jane's Chimpanzees

Mahale Mountain National Park

  • Early morning tracking through dense montane forest with a Mahale ranger
  • Mahale’s M-group: one of the most studied wild chimpanzee communities on Earth
  • One hour permitted with the group — no barriers, no glass, no zoo distance
  • Watch them forage, play, argue, and groom — behaviours unmistakably close to our own
  • Afternoon: swim in the lake, rest, write, reflect
  • Sunset boat ride along the forest edge — look for olive baboons on the shoreline rocks

Day-7: Scouting From Above

Mahale Mountain National Park

  • Full-day hike to the Mahale ridge summit with a Tongwe local guide (2462 m)
  • Ascend through four distinct forest zones — each one quieter, stranger, more beautiful
  • Summit view: Lake Tanganyika on one side, the Congo basin on the other
  • The guide explains what each plant is used for — medicine, food, ritual
  • Descent by a different route through a bamboo zone rarely walked by outsiders

Day-8: Salt and Iron

Lake Rukwa

  • Light aircraft from Mahale to the Rukwa basin (~45 min)
  • Lake Rukwa: a vast soda lake shimmering between escarpments — flamingos, pelicans, open-billed storks by the thousand
  • Afternoon walk across the alkaline flats with a local Fipa guide
  • Visit a Fipa ironworking community — one of Tanzania’s oldest metalworking traditions, still practised
  • The Fipa plateau above the lake: cool highland air, terraced fields, an entirely different Tanzania

Day-9: Birds and Chill

Lake Rukwa

  • No schedule today. This is deliberate.
  • Dawn birding on the lakeshore — Rukwa is one of East Africa’s most underrated birding sites
  • Option: canoe out onto the lake with a local fisherman at first light
  • Midday: read, write, sleep under an acacia tree
  • Late afternoon: walk the escarpment edge and watch the light change over the lake for two hours
  • Final campfire dinner — your guide cooks, you do nothing

Day-10: Back to the coast

Dar es Salaam

  • Morning light aircraft connection back to Dar es Salaam via Tabora (~3.5 hrs)
  • Afternoon buffer for international connections or one final night in Dar
  • Debrief with your Apis guide — and a promise to return