2-Day Walking & Canoe Safari – Arusha National Park

You arrive in Arusha and transfer the short distance to Meru Simba Lodge, then head out for an afternoon guided walk to the Tululusia Waterfall. Colobus monkeys move through the canopy overhead, the birdlife is constant, and the day finishes with drinks on the lodge terrace.

Arusha National Park is the one park in northern Tanzania where you can walk. There is no lion population to speak of, which is precisely why walking is permitted, and the result is an experience you cannot buy in the Serengeti at any price, being on foot in genuine forest with giraffe and buffalo somewhere nearby.

A morning canoe safari on the Momella Lakes, paddling quietly past hippo, waterbirds and the flamingo flocks that come and go with the water levels. Lunch is at the lodge, and then it is the short transfer back to Arusha for your departure.

Canoeing is the other thing this park offers that nowhere else on the circuit does. Being at water level in a small boat changes the scale of everything, a hippo at fifty metres from a canoe is a very different animal from a hippo at fifty metres from a vehicle, and the birdlife on these alkaline lakes is exceptional.