GUIDE ON PLANTATION LODGE NEAR NGORONGORO CRATER - HIGHLANDS

Navigation Tip - Go Directly To Prices, Reviews, Map, Photos, Video & Room Rate Guide For Plantation Lodge

Plantation Lodge is a beautifully landscaped tourist haven, 7,000 feet above sea level, in the Karatu agricultural district of Tanzania, only 30 minutes’ drive from the entrance of the Ngorongoro Conservation Area and a further 20 minutes to the crater floor, past tin-roofed shacks and smiling dusky children on a rural road, characteristic of travel in Africa, to a dream of a colonial Anglo-African garden.

Plantation Lodge provides a comfortable modernized resting place to unexpectedly stylish standards, within immaculate lawns and gardens, an ideal place to recover from dusty and grueling African safari adventures. It is a convenient base from which to take a Tanzanian tour to the caldera of a collapsed volcano, the Ngorongoro Crater, a UNESCO World Heritage site, with a dense population of thousands wildebeest, zebra and other ungulates, together with prides of predatory black-maned lions, a genetic variant only found within the crater.



Here, also can be found are: rare black rhino, venerable male elephants with incomparable ivory tusks , and the rest of the Big Five, all within a single six-hour day trip with AfricanMecca on the Ngorongoro Crater floor. For conservation purposes, no-one may game drive longer in one day.

The Ngorongoro Conservation area outside the crater demonstrates multi-purpose land use: the successful integration of wildlife conservation with the needs of pastoralist indigenous Maasai people and visiting tourists, anxious to share this life-affirming environment and learn about local life-styles, crafts, and customs as a thought-provoking addition to more traditional African vacation pursuits.

Accommodation At Plantation Lodge

16 individually styled and furnished rooms in widely dispersed suites offer comfort and relaxation for up to 40 guests within a delightful garden area, rioting with flowers, perfumed frangipani and cascading bougainvillea in vibrant purples and reds. A sculptured antelope with brightly blotched patterning focuses attention on tree shaded lawns.



All rooms are well furnished, with king size or twins, mosquito netted beds, ceiling fans and modern, en-suite bathrooms. The decor features satisfying ethnic artifacts and fresh flower pots. Many of the suites boast their own secluded fenced private verandas and outdoor dining areas with sun loungers, safari chairs, and large, wooden tables. In particular, the two-bedroom Farmhouse suite is suitable for families on tour in Tanzania with AfricanMecca Safaris. It has a separate living room with fire place, two sofas, and a dining area.

Garden House offers four double bedrooms for groups and enjoys first floor lounge with fireplace and a spacious, ground floor baronial hall with a long banqueting table, pitched, raftered roof and ornate curlicued central light fitting like a modern, minimalist chandelier. The more remote Jacaranda Suite is perfect for honeymooners in Tanzania.



The blossom-packed jacaranda, amethyst blue, is the tree which some African tribes believe, flowers only where there is a loving family living there. In addition to keeping your rooms in good order, attentive staff provide fresh flowers from the garden in pleasing arrangements for your delight. Mains electric and WiFi are available. An outdoor swimming pool completes the restful ambience.

Safari At Plantation Lodge

The Ngorongoro Crater game drive is one of the most popular activity on safari in Tanzania. During the 50 minute drive to the crater through farmland and forest in a customized, pop-up roofed 4 x 4, your knowledgeable AfricanMecca guide will point out the various animal movements as you come across them, or oribi, giraffe and other ungulates who can only be found outside the crater walls.

By exchanging unrestricted news of tracks and sightings by radio with other guides, your guide will ensure that you miss none of the action. You may head out to the elephants and lion on grassy plains, black rhino moving into fever forest shade, or hippo bathing in rich, green bowls of water hyacinth and flamingo posturing on salty verges of the central lake – Magadi (Read more Ngorongoro animal experiences).



Adventures closer to home include getting to know the Maasai people, visiting the coffee plantation and bird watching in the delightful gardens where Fischer’s Love birds head a jewel-like avian cast and Yellow Bellied Sun birds sip nectar with their long, curved beaks. Further afield, you could visit the Olduvai Gorge, where man began to emerge from prehistoric obscurity almost 2 million years ago. You will grow more aware of your deepest evolutionary memories on tour in Tanzania, where it all began.

Dining At Plantation Lodge

Productive gardens provide keynote meals at Plantation Lodge where fruit, salads, herbs, and other vegetables come to table within hours if not minutes of being harvested, and where coffee is grown, fermented, and roasted on the home plantation. Meals can be eaten in any of three public and two private dining areas on the premises, or al fresco on lawns or by the pool.

After very early morning tea or coffee, a buffet breakfast of seasonal fruit salad, cereals, cold meats, and cheese is set out in the main dining room for guests determined on a predawn start to reach the main gate ahead of the game to make the most of their Ngorongoro Crater tour activity. For others, there is an additional choice of eggs cooked to order.



Lunch boxes are prepared for guests on their Plantation Lodge game drive safaris with AfricanMecca. These typically include sandwiches and salad, carton juice, quiche and a piece of fruit, to be eaten at picnic sites on the Ngorongoro Crater floor. Simple, light lunches are served at the lodge, usually of salads, omelets, pasta or rice with broiled meats or curried. These can also be eaten outdoors at one of the garden tables, as can your afternoon coffee and cake, whilst you revel in birdsong.

Romantic sundowners can also be enjoyed by the pool, or on the bar decking as the sun sets behind Mount Oldeani, staining the Great Rift Escarpment with blood-red shadows. Dinner in one of the restaurant dining areas is a special treat at separate tables elegantly set with white linen and strewn with bright flowers of bougainvillea or perfumed frangipani.

Four candle-lit course meal may begin with a light pasta dish followed by vegetable soup, chicken or beef roast with vegetables, sometimes fish from Lake Victoria, Zanzibar or Dar es Salaam, and a dessert of fresh fruit with home-made ice-cream. French and South African wines from their own cellar complement the meal. Stylish bars provide comfortable indoor and outdoor seating where you can swap tales of your tour in Africa, against a chorus of chirping insects, until well into the star-studded African night.

Related Pages

1. Ngorongoro Crater Safari Park Guide	2. Best Time & Weather To Visit Ngorongoro Crater
3. Ngorongoro Crater Map	4. Safari Lodges, Camps & Hotels In Ngorongoro Crater