3 Days Camping Experience with Hadzabe & Datoga
Tour Overview
Spend three days in Lake Eyasi with two nights of camping near the Hadzabe and Datoga communities. On day one, you’ll visit the Hadzabe and spend the afternoon learning about their way of life. Early the next morning, you’ll join a hunting trip before returning to camp for breakfast. Later, you’ll visit the Datoga blacksmiths and nearby homesteads before heading back to Arusha on day three. Tents, meals, and guiding support are provided throughout the trip.
Full Itinerary
Day 1: Arusha - Lake Eyasi
Following breakfast at your hotel in Arusha, your drive guide will pick you up and together head westward to Lake Eyasi for an experience of a lifetime. Arriving and checking in at the campsite, your guide will take the time to brief you about the activities and experiences that await you unless time did not allow back at the hotel during or after breakfast. After lunch at the campsite, we kick off the adventure with a visit in the village to meet the Hadzabe people. After a few hours of simple hikes and activities around the village, we return to the campsite for dinner and a restful night.
Meal Plan: Lunch / Dinner
Day 2: Full day with the Hadzabe
The day starts early. You’ll head out on foot with a few Hadzabe men just before dawn. They don’t follow a set schedule, so if there’s food to be found, they just go. You’ll walk with them as they move through the bush, tracking small animals, checking traps, sometimes chasing birds. They carry handmade bows, some arrows tipped with poison made from desert plants. It’s quiet and focused, and you’ll be there to follow along and understand what keeps this community going.
The Hadzabe (or Hadza) have lived in the Eyasi basin for thousands of years. They don’t build permanent houses, keep livestock, or grow crops. Their language includes distinctive click sounds, which sets them apart from most other tribes in Tanzania. They don’t write their history down, but everything they know about food, fire, animals, and survival, gets passed on through practical experience, and that’s what you’re part of today.
After the hunt, you’ll return to camp for a proper meal. The midday heat slows things down. Later in the afternoon, you’ll visit a Hadzabe home or gathering place, and you might see how they start fires using sticks, how they make arrows from local wood and scrap metal, or how they store wild honey. You can ask questions and get answers through your guide. Dinner back at the campsite is simple and well-prepared. Nights are quiet here, and there’s not much between you and the stars but canvas.
Meal Plan: Breakfast / Lunch / Dinner
Day 3: Experience with the Datoga - Back to Arusha
After breakfast, you’ll visit a nearby Datoga home. Unlike the Hadzabe, the Datoga are blacksmiths and herders. Their houses are built from earth and branches, their yards busy with children, goats, and tools.
You’ll see how they melt scrap metal over open fire, pumping air into the flames with hand-made bellows. From the heat, they forge arrowheads, knives, and bracelets, each piece shaped by eye and instinct, without modern machines. The women bead necklaces and decorate their clothing with recycled materials and dyed leather. Some wear facial markings that have been passed down through generations.
There’s time to talk if you’re curious. Your guide can help interpret, but most of the experience comes from just being there watching, listening, asking when something catches your eye.
By late morning, you’ll return to the campsite for lunch and begin the drive back to Arusha. Expect to reach town in the late afternoon, depending on the road. If you’re flying out the same day, drop-off at the airport can be arranged. It’s a short trip, but one that leaves room for real moments, the kind you don’t plan for, but remember for a lifetime.
Meal Plan: Breakfast / Lunch
Tour Includes
- Transport: (4x4 Land Cruiser) with pop-up roof
- All entry fees
- Professional English-speaking safari guide
- Camping equipment
- Camping fees & Dining
- Purified Drinking water
Tour Excludes
- International flight
- Tanzanian visa
- Travel insurance
- Gratuity for your safari crew
- Single supplement
- Personal items
- Laundry service at the campsite
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