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We’re not sure why, but great journeys often involve great contrasts. African Splendour is a case in point. On the full 17-day safari (the first 5 days in Southern Africa are optional), you will range through 34 degrees of latitude and four countries, but, most engagingly and contrastingly, we experience the diverse excitements of Cape Town’s urban pizzazz, the watery colossus of Victoria Falls, and the wondrous game lands of the Serengeti-Maasai Mara ecosystem, where the wandering rains compel the planet’s most momentous movement of big, interesting mammals. (And then there’s the Ngorongoro Crater, which really can’t be contrasted with any other place, because there really isn’t any other place remotely like it, at least on our home planet.)

Those with a little less time can begin the safari on Day 7 in Nairobi before heading off to the quite engagingly contrasty Ngorongoro Crater, the Serengeti, and the Maasai Mara, high on the list of Africa’s supreme splendours.

Safari Highlights:

  • A magnificent and varietal passage through fabled East and Southern African landmarks: buzzing and beautiful Cape Town, epic Victoria Falls, and the legendary game reserves of East Africa.
  • A sterling collection of carefully curated hotels, camps and lodges, including the Belmond Mount Nelson in Cape Town, the famed Royal Livingstone at Victoria Falls, the stunning Four Seasons Safari Lodge Serengeti, and Sir Richard Branson’s personal camp in Kenya.
  • A rich variety of experiences: wine tasting in the gorgeous Cape Winelands, exploring the wondrous Cape Point Nature Reserve on the continent’s southern tip; land and air views of stupendous Victoria Falls; eventful game drives and walks in the heart of East Africa’s big game country.

Day 1: En Route
En route to Southern Africa for optional 17-day safari; otherwise, begin on Day 7 in Nairobi.

Days 2 to 4: Cape Town and environs
After a late afternoon or early evening arrival in South Africa’s second-largest and most scenic and snazzy city, we’ll settle into Cape Town’s grande dame hotel, the pink, very pretty, much-loved Belmont Mount Nelson Hotel.

Nelly, as it’s affectionately known, lies in the centre of City Bowl, the rocky natural amphitheatre that embraces old Cape Town. During our two full days we’ll make an excursion to the area’s famed Cape Winelands, lunching at an estate and strolling through the Wineland’s charming Dutch and French Huguenot towns of Stellenbosch and Franschhoek. We’ll visit Cape Point Nature Reserve and, a little farther south, the Cape of Good Hope. And we’ll take the Aerial Cableway to the top of 3,500-foot Table Mountain, centre stage of Cape Town’s amazing amphitheatre. And we’ll visit and perhaps lend a hand at one of Micato-AmericaShare’s inventive and inspiring programmes in Cape Town.

Days 5 & 6: Titanic Victoria Falls and the Royal Livingstone

A lovely flight northward via Johannesburg delivers us to Victoria Falls, Mosi-oa-Tunya, “The Smoke That Thunders,” not the highest or the widest but the world’s grandest and most booming waterfall, a large lakesworth of water flinging itself 360 feet straight down every minute of every day, right before our delighted eyes.

We have a couple of days to appreciate the Falls’ subtly shifting moods. We’ll cruise on the Zambezi River, watching elephants and giraffes enjoying their own sundowners, we’ll helicopter over the Falls on the Flight of Angels, and we’ll wander from one misty vantage point to another, returning for sustenance and leisure to our magnificent Royal Livingstone Hotel in Livingstone, Zambia, named for the almost mythic explorer David Livingstone.

Day 7: Nairobi and the serene Hemingways hostelry
We fly northeast from Zambia and Victoria Falls to Nairobi and Hemingways, a quietly ravishing haven for lovers of old-style pananche mixed with modern amenities and great cuisine, wonderfully set in the lush suburb of Karen.

Day 8-10: Lake Manyara and the epic Ngorongoro Crater

After visiting the nearby Karen Blixen Museum and the playful giants of the Giraffe Centre, we take a typically beautiful flight from Nairobi to Lake Manyara (to which we’ll be formally introduced in a couple of days), and a pleasant drive delivers us to The Manor at Ngorongoro, a marvelous 10-cottage, 20-suite retreat set within a 1500-acre Arabica coffee estate adjacent to the Ngorongoro Conservation Area.

Those of us who began African Splendour in South Africa will recognize the Manor’s elegant Cape Dutch style; those who haven’t will simply be charmed. Our three nights at the Manor are a rare idyll.

We’ll enjoy a restful afternoon (or a very active one; the Manor offers horseback riding, mountain biking, swimming in the Manor’s pool, and estate walks, among other enjoyments), before a classic high tea and dinner in the private dining room or wine cellar.

And the next day we visit one of the earth’s natural masterpieces. We’ve got a lot of affection for Ngorongoro. Here’s the essence of the crater’s tremendous charisma: 25,000 or so large and very viewable mammals—from apex predators to galumphing hippos—inhabit the crater’s 100-square-mile floor, and zigzagging up the old volcano’s forested wall to its rim, and gazing for the first or fifth time at the lush lands and their inhabitants in the crater below, is a great moment in any traveller’s life.

We’ll descend to the crater and excitedly roam from morning to afternoon, stopping at mid-day for a charmingly luxurious bush lunch, before heading back to a serene evening at the Manor.

Now we encounter Lake Manyara. Africa is blessed with epic lakes (Tanganyika is the world’s second deepest; all the Rift Lakes are gigantic stunners), but many, including Ernest Hemingway, consider the smaller gem of Lake Manyara—with its diamond-white alkali rim, its million or so coral-coloured flamingos, and the deep sapphire waters at its centre—the loveliest of all. After a relaxed (or active) morning at the Manor, we’ll embark on a fine afternoon of game viewing around the lake (many tree-climbing lions frequent Manyara’s Africa-embodying scrublands, mahogany forests, and bird-thronged marshlands). And after cocktails and canapés in the bush, we head back to the Manor for a final night before venturing to another masterpiece, the Serengeti.

Days 11 – 12: A lightening of spirit in the storied Serengeti

We feel much the same way about the Serengeti as we do about Ngorongoro, which is to say: rapturous. We give the world’s greatest wildlife habitat much praise throughout most of our Classic Safari descriptions.

We’ll make far-ranging game drives in the Serengeti based from the stunningly deluxe Four Seasons Safari Lodge Serengeti, elevated above the great plain, giving us vast, endlessly stimulating views.

Days 13 - 15: Sir Richard Branson’s Mahali Mzuri in the Maasai Mara

Leaving the Serengeti, we fly via Arusha and Nairobi to the Maasai Mara, the northern, more verdant section of the single most salubrious wildlife habitat on this or any known planet, the Serengeti-Maasai Mara ecosystem.

Game drives in the Mara are especially fruitful. And our Mara headquarters, auspiciously set in one of the Mara’s prime migration pathways, is a jewel: Sir Richard Branson’s Mahali Mzuri, whose innovatively designed, yet very African tents resemble the tents of our youth like the Metropolitan Museum of Art resembles a humble craft fair.

Days 16 – 17: Return to Nairobi for flights home
After flying back to Nairobi, we’ll visit the Micato-AmericaShare Harambee Centre in the afternoon, relax in a day room at Fairmont The Norfolk or the equally refreshing Boma Nairobi, have a quiet dinner, and head out to Jomo Kenyatta Airport for our late evening flights home, where we arrive, tired but exalted, on Day 17 of this mightily splendid safari.

Contact Going Places Travel for pricing and latest availability.

Prices are land only for travel during off peak season, based on double occupancy and do not include airfare. Prices are subject to availability.

Tour Code: MS

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