The Hadzable tribe

Right in the heart of East Africa you’ll find the Serengeti and Ngorongoro dominating safari tours. They account for around 80% of all the tours in Tanzania. But that is by no means the whole story. The southwest of Arusha is home to extraordinary people, the “Hadzable tribe” – the last remaining hunters and gatherers of East Africa. They grow no food, raise no livestock, and live without rules or calendars. They are living a hunter-gatherer existence that is little changed from 10,000 years.

Lake Natron
Lake Natron is in northern Tanzania on the border with Kenya, lying in the East African Rift System, 70 miles (113 km) northwest of Arusha. The lake is 35 miles (56 km) long and 15 miles (24 km) wide and contains salt, soda, and magnesite deposits. The lake’s warm water is an ideal breeding ground for the Rift Valley flamingos. This lake produces 70% percent of the population of the lesser flamingoes worldwide.

Mafia Island
While Zanzibar is probably the most popular island off Tanzania’s coast, Mafia Island has managed to remain under the radar for decades. This classic Indian Ocean island lies 200 kilometers (124 miles) south of Zanzibar and flaunts a genuinely serene tropical ambience. It’s home to one of the world’s best dive sites, the Mafia Island Marine Park, and the perfect place to live out your castaway fantasy.

Ruaha&Katavi;Screts of Savannah
Equally far from the beaten path are Katavi and Ruaha, attracting a very small percentage of the volume of visitors who pack the Serengeti each year. Both are big, rolling savannah parks with healthy populations of the heavyweight species – elephants, buffalo, and the big cats – and both are serious contenders for that most coveted of Tanzanian titles: ‘Best Kept Secret’. The game viewing is great, the scenery spectacular and the parks retain a truly wild ambience. Fly in and see them now before the secret gets out. There are a handful of luxury lodges scattered in each park, usually set next to rivers for easy armchair game viewing.

Mahale National Park
This remote park is set on the sandy forest-lined shore of Lake Tanganyika, the world’s longest freshwater body at 675km from north to south. Astonishingly beautiful, Mahale is also perhaps Africa’s premier chimp-tracking destination, offering daily visits to a wild chimp community habituated by Japanese researchers in the 1960s. The birdwatching and monkey viewing are also superb.