Travel to Kilimanjaro Airport (JRO). Arusha is a leading international diplomatic center. This city is considered the de facto capital of the East African Community. Arusha is surrounded by some of the most famous landscapes in Africa, including African National Parks (N.P.). The climate is mild and inviting at the foot of Mount Meru on the far eastern edge of the Great Rift Valley.

Settle into your lodge immersed in abundant jungle-like gardens boasting towering palm and mango trees where Colobus and other monkeys reign supreme. The lodge is built and run by the Maasai people and has views of Mt. Kilimanjaro. Enjoy a welcome drink & snack as many flights arrive late.

Participate in a community orientation and safety overview and welcome to Tanzania. Enjoy a relaxed day after a brief Swahili lesson at a leisurely breakfast. You can expect to feel settled and experience full body awareness through our first practice. Shed your layers of stress, travel, and expectation as you relax into awareness of your breath and body.

After lunch, we embark on a 2.5-hour journey to our first eco-lodge. The Maasai welcome you in their very special, impressive way. Let us introduce you to the life of the Maasai at this ancient, mystical cultural region. Nothing is as you are used to it. You will live in clay houses with additional amenities, such as a Western toilet, shower, and sink. The large pool and the sauna also portray what you would expect from a luxury lodge. Be sure to visit the Mirror Cave which takes you into the African dream world. Enjoy sunset yoga & meditation followed by an evening cocktail in the living room around the fireplace and a Welcome Dinner.

After yoga and breakfast, you will discover the medicinal plants of Maasai with a naturopathic guide. After lunch, you will have the opportunity to try on traditional Maasai clothes yourself and to attach the traditional buckets to your donkey in order to get water. For the Maasai, this is a very funny sight. You will enjoy your next glass of water with great gratitude!

The rest of your day is completely reserved for you and your personal well-being. Enjoy the swimming pool, sauna, massage, and wonderful view.

Also, in the evening, you’ll have an opportunity to dance with the Maasai. The more you participate, the wilder the songs and the dances become.

The scenery of this happening depicts Mount Meru in the setting sun and the highest mountain of Africa, the Kilimanjaro, which now sinks into red clouds. At the campfire, you will listen to the cultural stories of the Maasai with your dinner.

After yoga and breakfast, you will drive 4-4 1/2 hours towards Karatu, stopping en route at Mto wa Mbu, a culturally vibrant town, for an optional market visit. Once we arrive, the Karatu area offers a variety of activities such as canoe, bike or hike. You will learn about many things and see a different side of Tanzania before checking into your accommodations close to the Ngorongoro Crater rim for an overnight stay in an intimate private camp in a beautiful bush location. The camp is set on the Eastern side of the Ngorongoro Crater’s rim, close to the Crater Lodge. Just inside the park boundaries, our location permits early game drives down to the crater, leaving you almost alone to discover this World Heritage Site. Up to 25,000 animals call the crater their home, except the Maasai Giraffes, who cannot cope with the crater's steep slopes. The main attraction, and also the most elusive, are the 23 Black Rhinoceroses that live inside the crater, maybe the one and only chance to see them in the wild.

Following an early breakfast, we descend into Ngorongoro Crater, the world's largest inactive, intact, and unfilled volcanic caldera, a magical place teeming with wildlife. Your safari drive will follow the road along the crater's rim, affording breathtaking views across the 100 square mile crater floor 2000 feet below, and then descend to the crater floor. The crater's steep walls and verdant floor serve as a natural sanctuary for some of Africa's densest populations of large mammals, including a few rhinoceros. After a day of wildlife viewing, we gather around the fire for happy hour, sharing stories with your Retreat Leader and local guide before yoga, a delicious meal and time for reflection, journaling, and dreamtime.

Wake up to nature and your spirit with a soulful morning yoga practice. Each day of the next few day’s safari will differ slightly depending on the group's wishes and wildlife movement, but generally, we will have a morning sit and yoga session at our camp, and lunch will be served picnic-style on the safari. Here’s what you’ll see:

Ngorongoro Conservation Area: Hailed as the premier safari destination and home to the annual migration of over a million wildebeest, Serengeti offers prime opportunities to view breathtaking vistas teeming with wildlife. You have a chance to see elephants, lions, cheetahs, and leopards and truly immerse yourself into primordial natural rhythms. This is where the Great Migration takes place, one of the world's most spectacular natural events – every year, over a million wildebeest and zebra and antelope migrate.

Seronera Valley in Central Serengeti. The Seronera region is an important wildlife transition zone between the southern grasslands and the northern woodlands and is renowned for its year-round game viewing due to its abundance of water in the many rivers, as well as for its large populations of resident big cats. Additionally, between April and June and again between November and January, this area is crossed by the annual wildebeest migration, which always provides thrilling wildlife drama.

Ndutu Plains. The area has high densities of cheetahs and lions particularly when the wildebeest inhabit these plains from December to March. There are two beautiful sodic lakes in the vicinity. Being in the Ngorongoro Conservation Area (NCA) you will be able to drive off road - a great advantage for getting close up to Africa's large mammals! This area is also the traditional birthing ground for the wildebeest, which are attracted to the area by the high concentrations of phosphorus in the soil, an essential mineral for lactating mothers. It is one of the greatest places in Africa to sit around a campfire and listen to the night sounds under a sky full of stars.

Evening story time: During your stay, you will experience the healing power of storytelling around the campfire, African-style. Your local hosts will illuminate the parallels between what you see on the game drives and our human society, the sacred masculine and the sacred feminine from an Indigenous African perspective.

Camp & Tent Sites: From the private terrace of your tent you can observe the wildlife of the area. Many animals visit the lake in search of water and therefore this camp is in a privileged observation point. Besides, this area is the principle setting of the Great Migration which takes place from December to April and the Big Five visit the area. The camp is set-up every year in a different part of the area, to make sure that you will always have the best place to see this impressive spectacle from your own tent.

In addition, the camp is ecological without losing in comfort and attention. The electricity is generated by solar panels and the water is rainwater collected during the rains. All the products used are biodegradable.

After breakfast, make your way towards Olduvai Gorge; here, you can immerse yourself in ancient history at the fascinating paleo-anthropological site of Olduvai Gorge, one of the most important in the world. Set between the Ngorongoro Crater and the Serengeti National Park. Learn about archaeology, history, and our ancient hominid ancestors at Olduvai Gorge. Olduvai Gorge is a canyon carved by water through the southern Serengeti plains. Its chief claim to fame is the rich treasure trove of human and animal fossils that it has yielded. Few places in the world can match Serengeti's long human history, and this fact has earned this part of Africa the title 'Cradle of Mankind.' There is a museum and visitor's center overlooking the gorge, as well as a daily lecture by a Department of Antiquities guide.

At tonight’s lodge, elephants abound, and there is a huge diversity and variety of birds. You may also catch sight of tree-climbing lions. You can shower under the sky or sleep under the “upside-down tree of the African plain,” the Baobab Tree.

Tonight, we’ll have our special closing yoga ceremony and Farewell Dinner together as we wrap up our adventure.

We say farewell to our Safari experience today. Depart in the afternoon or evening today from Kilimanjaro Airport (JRO) in Arusha.

Or add on our 3-day excursion to Zanzibar. Inquire after booking the base trip!