13 Days Mount Kilimanjaro Lemosho Route Trek & Safari

On arrival at the Kilimanjaro International Airport, our Tranquil Kilimanjaro staff will be waiting for you at the airport for a private transfer to your place of accommodation. After a short briefing about your 13-day Mount Kilimanjaro Lemosho Route trek and big 5 safari trip, you will have dinner and stay overnight at the recommended hotel or lodge.

• Transport: Private transfer (0.8 hour, 40 km)
• Accomodation: Hotel

To begin our Kilimanjaro and safari expedition, we will drive to the Londorossi Park Gate after a hearty breakfast to register. Before we start our trek up the woodland route to Mti Mkubwa (Big Tree) camp at 2895m, our porters prepare and load our provisions and bags. We’ll spend the night here.

• Transport: 1.7 hours, 80 km
• Hiking time: 3 – 4 hours
• Ascent: 535 m
• Max. altitude: 2895 m
• Accommodation: Camping
• Meals included: Breakfast / Lunch / Dinner

With breathtaking views of Shira Cathedral, our drive continues east through the Shira Plateau. In order to go to Shira 1 Camp, which is at a height of 3500 meters, we have to traverse a moorland meadow. We should be able to glimpse the breathtaking glaciers of the Western Breach by now. The temperature tonight will likely drop below freezing, making it colder than the previous night.

• Hiking time: 5 – 6 hours
• Ascent: 605 m
• Max. altitude: 3500 m
• Accommodation: Camping
• Meals included: Breakfast / Lunch / Dinner

As the route approaches the moorland region after leaving the woodland, it becomes steeper. To reach Moir Hut, which has stunning views of the Arrow glacier, you first traverse the high-altitude Shira Caldera on a mild gradient. Here around 4200 meters, we will set up camp for the night.

• Hiking time: 6 – 7 hours
• Ascent: 700 m
• Max. altitude: 4200 m
• Accommodation: Camping
• Meals included: Breakfast / Lunch / Dinner

Today, we will go to a height of 4600 meters and descend to the base of the Lava Tower for lunch and acclimatization. This will be the hardest day we’ve had thus far, and you could feel the effects of the altitude for the first time. Following the acclimatization maxim “hike high, sleep low,” we will descend once again by approximately 650 meters to Barranco Camp after lunch. We descend to Barranco Camp during a two-hour period, which provides wonderful possibilities to get some stunning images of the Western Breach and Breach Wall. The camp is located in a valley that lies below the Great Barranco Wall and Breach.

• Hiking time: 6 – 7 hours
• Ascent: 400 m
• Descent: 650 m
• Max. altitude: 4600 m
• Accommodation: Camping
• Meals included: Breakfast / Lunch / Dinner

A quick but enjoyable day that begins with a climb up the Great Barranco Wall is what sets the pace on day 6 of our 13-day Kilimanjaro Lemosho route trek and safari in Tanzania. To reach the Karanga Valley (3930m), which is located beneath the icefalls of the Heim, Kersten, and Decken Glaciers, we then travel through scree. At the campground at Karanga, we’ll spend the night..

• Hiking time: 4 hours
• Ascent: 260 m
• Descent: 280 m
• Max. altitude: 4210 m
• Accommodation: Camping
• Meals included: Breakfast / Lunch / Dinner

In order to reach the intersection with the Mweka route for descending Kilimanjaro, we leave the Karanga campground behind. We then ascend to Barafu Camp from here. You have now finished the Southern Circuit, which gives several perspectives of the peak. We may relax, eat dinner, and get ready for the summit day in camp. From here, it is possible to see Mawenzi and Kibo’s two summits in full view.

• Hiking time: 3 – 4 hours
• Ascent: 670 m
• Max. altitude: 4600 m
• Accommodation: Camping
• Meals included: Breakfast / Lunch / Dinner

Around 23:30 a few minutes before midnight, tea and cakes will be the favoured bites to give you the much-needed energy boost for breakfast. Starting between the Rebman and Ratzel glaciers, we ascend to Stella Point on the crater rim on our ascent to the summit. The hardest portion of the walk both psychologically and physically is this. We’ll take a little break at Stella Point (5732m), where we’re hoping to arrive in time to see the spectacular dawn (weather permitting). The highest peak on Mount Kilimanjaro on the African continent, Uhuru Peak (5895m), is now only an hour away.

We proceed to Barafu camp for lunch before descending to Mweka camp from the peak. You’ll need trekking poles for the rough scree leading down to Mweka Camp (3100m). We will have our final meal on the mountain later in the evening before a well-deserved rest.

Meals & Drinks:

• Hiking time: 13 – 16 hours
• Ascent: 1295 m
• Descent: 2795 m
• Max. altitude: 5895 m
• Accomodation: Camping
• Meals included: Breakfast / Lunch / Dinner

This is your last day of the journey; after breakfast, we continue our descent of 1300 meters to the Mweka Park Gate, where you can pick up your summit certificates from the park headquarters. We will transfer you back to your hotel  in Moshi Town.

Meals & Drinks:

• Transport: 0.6 hour, 17 km
• Hiking time: 3 – 4 hours
• Descent: 1300 m
• Max. altitude: 3100 m
• Accommodation: Hotel
• Meals included: Breakfast / Lunch

We will pick you up from your accommodation with our safari driver and vehicle and then travel to Tarangire National Park, arriving in plenty of time for an afternoon game drive. A large number of wild animals including elephants, buffalo, giraffes, and antelope are drawn to the Tarangire River, which flows through the park, especially between June and October when it is dry. Large elephant herds may frequently be seen wandering through Tarangire’s savannah grasslands or resting in the shade of the park’s many bizarre-looking “upside-down trees,” or baobab. The park also has the most diversified collection of birds in Africa, with over 550 distinct species, including the largest flying bird in the world, the Kori Bustard! In Karatu, we’ll spend the night in a safari lodge.

Meals & Drinks:

• Accommodation: Safari Lodge
• Meals included: Breakfast / Lunch / Dinner

After breakfast, we will travel for around four and a half hours via the Ngorongoro Conservation Area to the Serengeti, stopping along the way for a picnic lunch. The Serengeti offers some of the most thrilling game watching, even when the migration is calm, thanks to its enormous herds of buffalo, smaller herds of elephant and giraffe, as well as huge numbers of eland, topi, hartebeest, impala, and Grant’s gazelle. We will spend tonight in a tented camp deep into the Serengeti.

Meals & Drinks:

• Accommodation: Safari Lodge
• Meals included: Breakfast / Lunch / Dinner

We’ll leave this morning with a picnic lunch to go wildlife watching in the Serengeti. One of the best wildlife parks in the world is the Serengeti National Park. It is Tanzania’s oldest game reserve, translating to “endless plains” in the Maasai language, and is well-known for its part in the annual Great Migration, during which an estimated two million herbivorous animals—mostly wildebeest and zebra—move from the Serengeti to Kenya’s Maasai Mara Game Reserve. We will depart the Serengeti in the afternoon and go back to Karatu.

Meals & Drinks:

• Accomodation: Safari Lodge
• Meals included: Breakfast / Lunch / Dinner

We’ll drive to the Ngorongoro Conservation Area’s amazing wildlife habitat after an early breakfast. The crater, which is more than 260km2 (100 miles2) in size, was created around 2-3 million years ago when a large volcano erupted and fell on itself. It is now the world’s largest preserved volcanic caldera. More than 25,000 big animals live there, so it’s common to witness all five members of the “Big Five” in a single day.

We will depart for Arusha in the late afternoon to catch a flight out of Kilimanjaro. You will need to get a flight that departs after 9 pm because we anticipate being back in Arusha by 5 pm. We can book a hotel room for one more night of accommodation in Arusha.

Meals & Drinks:

• Meals included: Breakfast / Lunch