10-Day Empakai, Olmoti, Serengeti and Lake Natron Safari with Ol Doinyo Lengai

At 5:45 am you take a breakfast box and set out for a sunrise game drive, when predators are most active. You carry on through the park until the afternoon, then return to camp for a hot lunch. After lunch you head out again and keep exploring Tarangire's river valley and woodlands until late in the day, then drive on to your next campsite for dinner and the night.

After an early breakfast you drive to Ngorongoro and descend 610 metres to the crater floor for about six hours of game viewing, with a picnic lunch. Look for endangered black rhino, lions, elephants, zebras, buffaloes and wildebeest, and for flamingos and other birds on the soda lake. All these grazers support lions and leopards, with hyenas and jackals close behind. In the late evening you drive across the highlands to Nainokanoka.

After breakfast you walk for an hour to Olmoti Crater, take in the view and walk back to the village, then drive to Bulati Maasai primary school for lunch. After lunch you walk about 9 km, four hours, to Empakai, with views of Kilimanjaro, Meru and Olmoti. Empakai is 300 metres deep, its floor half covered by a soda lake, and bushbuck, buffaloes and blue monkeys live on the rim.

After breakfast you walk slowly, pole pole, down the steep path into Empakai Crater and around the lake, with lunch on the crater floor at the water's edge. Buffaloes, waterbuck, reedbuck, zebras, wildebeest and many birds can be seen at close range. In all this is about six hours of walking, down and back up, so take it slowly and drink plenty of water. After lunch you climb back to the rim and drive to the Ngorongoro rim for the night.

After breakfast you set out on a full-day game drive with picnic lunches, crossing the Ngorongoro Conservation Area and watching for wildlife on the way to the central Serengeti. As the highlands drop onto the open plains, you enter the land of the great migration, where more than a million wildebeest follow the rains each year. You arrive at your campsite in the central Serengeti in time for dinner.

At 5:30 am you take a breakfast box and head out for a sunrise game drive, returning to camp at 8:30 am. Then, with a picnic lunch, you spend the whole day in the park. Your guide chooses the best areas for the time of year: the hippo pool, where hippos share the water with crocodiles, the lion prides, and, in season, the migration herds of wildebeest and zebras. Leopard and cheetah are harder to find, but always possible. You stay out for sunset.

After breakfast you set out on a game drive with a picnic lunch, leaving the Serengeti by the north-east through Klein's Gate and crossing the Loliondo Game Controlled Area. Lunch is on the Salei plain, with views over the Maasai bushland around Lake Natron and, on a clear day, Kilimanjaro. The road then drops into the Rift Valley, and you reach Lake Natron in the evening.

After breakfast you visit a local Maasai community to learn about their way of life. At 11 am you drive to the foot of the escarpment and walk up to the waterfalls to swim and watch the birds. After lunch you visit the footprint heritage site at Engare Sero. Late in the afternoon you take a short walk by the lake, one of the main breeding areas of the flamingos, and return to camp after sunset.

At 1 am you have a cup of coffee and drive to the start of the climb, where your English-speaking Maasai mountain guide leads you up to the summit, 2,878 m (9,442 ft). The climb is hard and steep, with scrambling on rock. From the top you look into the active crater and out to Ngorongoro, Longido, Lake Natron, Kitumbeine and Kerimasi. After sunrise you descend to the vehicle, return to camp for lunch, then drive back to your hotel in Arusha.