8-Day Selous & Mafia Island Relaxation

After breakfast, drive from Dar Es Salaam to the Selous Game Reserve, one of Africa’s largest and unexplored national reserves. Meandering through the plains and woodlands, the Rufiji River gives rise to a labyrinth of streams, channels, and pretty lakes in a delicate water paradise. You will arrive in time for lunch and will then be able to relax, refresh and unpack before your afternoon game activity.
You will explore the Rufiji River and some of the lakes in Selous, accompanied by a guide, with special open boats having canvas roofs. Boat safaris are the ideal way to enjoy the wonderful scenery of the Rufiji River with its many hippos, crocodiles, and multitudes of birds. Certainly not to be missed is the sunset view from the boat, in which the tranquility of the river and the cry of the hippos around you syncs with the scenery of the sun descending below the horizon.

After breakfast early in the morning, you’ll go for a sunrise game drive that offers close wildlife encounters for the whole day in a jeep photo safari. During the game drive, in the dense thick open wooded grassland of Selous you shall sightsee lions, elephants, hyenas, black rhinos, giraffes, hippos, cheetahs, crocodiles, antelopes, etc.
The wildlife reserve of Selous (Selous Game Reserve) is one of the largest wildlife parks in the world, with a total area of 54,600 square kilometers.
We will stop at a shaded space for picnic lunch in the wilderness during the hottest part of the day, usually under a large tree overlooking a lake.
Thereafter continue with the game drive in the afternoon and later in the evening drive back to the lodge for relaxation.

You’ll have an early morning breakfast at the camp and start a sunrise bush walk. Walking safaris are a fantastic way to get closer to nature and learn more about the smaller species and the bush itself. It’s an unforgettable experience to walk within such a vast and untamed area of the natural reserve. As you take your footsteps into the bust, you will get closer sightings of giraffes, elephants, learn to identify animal tracks and discover fascinating facts about insects, trees and listen to melody sounds of colorful bird species. These guided nature walks take about 2-3 hours. After having lunch, you will drive back to Dar es salaam for an overnight stay.

After morning breakfast, drive to the Airport then fly to Mafia Island, enjoying views of the turquoise Indian Ocean as you fly. Mafia and its surrounding islands are covered in rich rainforest, thick grasslands and giant baobab trees, and dotted with tiny villages. Sunbirds flit through the trees, five species of endemic butterflies can be found and bushbabies call at night. From sunrise to sunset Mafia is magical and as yet little visited. Upon arrival at Mafia Island, check in at the Lodge, relax a bit for lunch and later in the afternoon go for swimming with Whale Sharks, the huge and gentle creatures are really fun to swim with.

Enjoy Mafia’s rich coral with a snorkeling excursion. This off-beaten-path Island offers the best bays to enjoy snorkeling in Tanzania. The horse shaped chole bay is a nice spot for snorkelers with shallow reefs perfect for snorkeling offer a matchless variety of marine life from soft to hard corals and schools of colorful fish. Snorkeling offers stunning underwater sceneries
Chole Mjini offers fabulous dhow trips to swim with Mafia’s gentle sea giants. The dhows (traditional Swahili) are stocked with refreshments ensuring you are kept-re-hydrated throughout the trip.
Breakfast is at 6.30 am together with an educational briefing and then you set sail on the show in search of the whale sharks. When approaching the sharks the engines are switched off. The approach is disturbance free so as not to chase them away. You can then jump into the water and snorkel with them, including taking photos and videos.

Whale sharks are most often seen in tropical/subtropical regions. They are solitary and travel alone but aggregate in a few locations around the world.
Mafia Island is one of the special locations with one of the longest lasting aggregations and thus one of the best places to watch these animals while snorkeling.

Spend your days relaxing in the beautiful surroundings on Mafia Island while scuba diving to the numerous reefs in chole bay.
We recommend taking a trip out in a traditional dhow boat to dive around the beautiful untouched reefs nearby, bursting with marine life.
Scuba diving gives hopes for swimming with whale sharks and hopes for spotting the rainbow-colored clownfish, gigantic grouper, octopus, dolphins, and rays among others
You could also visit the Swahili ruins on Chole Island where you can take a guided village walk to see the island’s famous colony of endangered fruit bats.
Overnight Afro Beach Bungalows or Kitu Kiblu Beach Houses

Today you will fly from Mafia back to Dar es Salaam where you will catch your overnight flight back Home. This is the end of the hopefully wonderful experience! Journey.
End of the safari. Thanks for choosing us.