Tanzania culture and beach safari

country:	Tanzania
location:	Adjacent to Saadani National Park
price:	From £1395 (9 days) excluding flights. Price includes domestic flights, full board accommodation, drinks, activities, taxes and levies

Tailor made safari holidays here

Tanzania holidays here

description

This tailor made safari takes you on an extraordinary personal journey through coastal Tanzania. You will also experience East Africa’s unique Swahili culture, Tanzania’s diverse, warm and fascinating people and spectacular scenery. Each day you will do only what you choose to do, when you choose to do it.

A typical day:
A morning activity follows a leisurely breakfast and you get back to camp in time for a light lunch and a siesta during the heat of the day. There is plenty to explore and see in the afternoon after a cup of tea. Dinner beneath the stars follows sundowners and stories around the camp fire.

You will experience a variety of beautiful scenery and plentiful bird life. Whilst you will see evidence of much wildlife our experienced and knowledgeable guides are cautious not to expose you to undue risk.

itinerary

Day 1:	Arrive Dar es Salaam. Transfer to Sea Cliff Hotel, set on the shores of the Indian Ocean.
Day 2-5:	Fly to the camp in a private conservation area, landing on our own airstrip. Enjoy yarns around the camp fire and dinner under the stars. Sleep the night in a ‘banda’ surrounded by the sounds of Africa. During the next three days you choose what you would like to do. It could be that you explore the sand river, Lusangazi, where the signs of the previous night’s activities are very evident. Perhaps enjoy a visit to our nearby village, Matipwili, to meet our community and enjoy the sights and sounds of Tanzanian village life. You may wish to canoe down the river to see for yourself the abundant birdlife. The lapping of the water on the boat is disturbed only by the bird calls and the sounds of monkeys playing on the shores. You might like to alight and visit a farm on the opposite shore where they grow food crops such as maize, tomatoes, coconuts and beans. Or you may choose to swing in your hammock and do absolutely nothing!
Day 6-8:	Travel to Sima Beach. Travel by car via Saadani National Park to the tented camp at Sima Beach. Be the only people on the long stretch of sea and sand and spend the days beachcombing, swimming, exploring and relaxing.
Day 9:	Return to Dar es Salaam by air.

travelling with a local operator

This holiday is operated by a company based in the holiday destination and they will be able to provide expert local knowledge. They will be able to tailor make your holiday to suit your requirements not only concerning the dates of travel but also typically the standard of accommodation, and thus price. It is rare for local operators to be able to help with the booking of your flights.

how this holiday makes a difference

This trip makes a difference to the community of Matipwili who have little or no income other than that generated by subsistence farming. The trip offers direct employment to a number of villagers in a village where there is only one other employer. 100% of our employees are trained by us and are from the village.

Where possible all purchases for the trip are made in Matipwili. Sanctuary Tanzania pays a monthly concession fee to the village for the use of their land. In addition we pay a bed night levy of 10% for each visitor and a US $2 fee for each visitor taken to the village. Donations of over US $2500 have been made to the building of a new health clinic in Mkwaja, the village closet to Sima Beach. Other donations have helped improve the water well in Mkwaja.

Guests have the option of making a donation to various social projects that are facilitated on an ongoing basis by the company. So far, over US $17000 has been raised for the building of a secondary school in Matipwili which will ensure that students from Matipwili can stay at home for their education rather than travel and board away from home. In total guests are currently sponsoring the education of 41 secondary school students from Matipwili. They have also contributed funds to design and construct a water system for the secondary school.

Our camp is built almost entirely from local renewable materials. By walking in the area we are inhibiting poaching activities and assisting our conservation efforts.

As well as this we employ people rather than use machinery such as tractors. All our roads and even our airstrip is maintained by hand. We do not use electricity to heat water or to give light, we cook as much as possible using fallen timber as fuel, we grow nothing that is not indigenous but have a policy of planting trees grown from seeds harvested on site.

We encourage our staff to protect all animal, plant and insect life.We buy all our cold drinks in bottles rather than cans so that they can be returned and re used.We encourage our guests to re fill their drinking water bottles with rain water from our filter rather than use another plastic bottle.When building we use grass thatch cut on the property and try to utilise fallen timber within the structure.

We are currently starting a scheme to grow our own biofuel both for our use and for the villagers. We have distributed Jatropha seed to about 60 people for them to grow Jatropha trees on their land. When in production we will buy any oil they have for sale or they may use the oil for themselves. We will also teach them to make soap from the oil.

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