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DESCRIPTION

You push aside a tangled rope of vines, pressing through the maze of foliage, when at last you see them. Ten or 12 gorillas sit in a forest clearing, two more up in a tree. They stop munching for a moment to observe you, nonchalant. A few feet away, you spy the big silverback. Twice the size of the young females, he sits on massive haunches, stripping leaves from branches. He’s close enough to hold your gaze with his liquid brown eyes. Something primal, inexplicable, connects the two of you in that moment. The rest of the world slips away outside this rare encounter. On this riveting wildlife expedition, meet mountain gorillas at close range and observe a host of other primates, too, including chimpanzees.

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PRICES PER PERSON
Minimum Age - 16 years old

Single Traveler - $6,299

Two Guests - $5,299 per person (double occupancy)

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DAY 1: 2024: NAIROBI / LAKE NAKURU NATIONAL PARK (170 KM, 03 HRS)

Met upon arrival at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport off an early morning arrival flight, briefed by our representative and drive towards the Great Rift Valley with a brief stop at the Great Rift
Valley view point for great picture opportunities. The Great Rift Valley is geologic phenomena, which divides Kenya neatly down the length of the country essentially demarcating east from west.
Today's Rift Valley is characterized by uninhabitable desert and fertile farmland, flat arid plains, steep escarpments and 07 lakes in Kenya. Descend to the floor of the Rift Valley and proceed to
Lake Nakuru National Park. Upon entry to the Park, embark on a game drive that will take you around the shores of the lake famous for its birdlife especially flamingos that form a pink hue
across the lake.  Arrive at Sarova Lion Hill Lodge (4*) / Similar in time for lunch. Short siesta and at 1600 hrs,
enjoy an afternoon game drive in the Park.
Dinner

DAY 2: 2024: LAKE NAKURU / MASAI MARA GAME RESERVE (255 KM, 06 HRS)

Breakfast
Depart Nakuru after breakfast and drive through the floor of the Rift Valley to the world famous Masai Mara game reserve, arriving at Keekorok Lodge (4*) in time for lunch. Short siesta and at 1600 hrs, enjoy an afternoon game drive in the reserve.
Dinner
Overnight Keekorok Lodge (4*)

 

DAY 3: 2024: MASAI MARA

Breakfast
Full day in the reserve with both morning and afternoon game drives at 0630hrs and 1600 hrs respectively. Considered by many to be Kenya's finest game reserve, the 650sq miles of the Masai
Mara adjoin Tanzania's well-known Serengeti, forming one ecosystem.  The open rolling savannah grassland of the Mara is the home of numerous wildlife species including elephant, rhino, lion,
cheetah, leopard, hyena, jackal, buffalo, eland, topi, impala, gazelle, warthog and zebra.  From June to September, the annual Wildebeest migration takes place when thousands of these animals sweep across the plain and seek out new grazing areas. All meals
Overnight: Keekorok Lodge (4*).

DAY 4: 2024: MASAI MARA/NAIROBI (265 KM, 05 HRS)

Breakfast
Depart Masai Mara after breakfast and drive back to Nairobi, arriving in the early afternoon hours. You will be dropped off at your hotel Farewell dinner tonight will be at the famous Carnivore restaurant. The Carnivore is justifiably referred to as Africa’s Greatest Eating Experience. Twice voted amongst the worlds 50 best restaurants by UK based Restaurant magazine, the Carnivore is an amazing open-air meat specialty restaurant that has strikingly different food service and atmosphere to any other restaurant in Kenya. Whole joints of meat - legs of lamb and pork, haunches of exotic meat, rumps of beef, sirloins, racks of lamb, spare ribs, sausages, chicken wings, skewered kidneys, even crocodile, and other tasty morsels - are roasted on traditional Maasai swords over a huge, visually spectacular charcoal pit that dominates the entrance of the restaurant. 
Return to your hotel after dinner.
Overnight: Radisson Blu Hotel & Suites Nairobi Arboretum (5*),

DAY 5: 2024: KENYAN - GHANA

Breakfast
Transfer to the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport for your onward flight arrangements.   Arrive in Accra Airport via either Kenyan Airways or Ethiopian Airlines    Meet, assist and transfer to your hotel.
Hotel check in is at 3.00pm
Orientation by Tour Staff
Dinner at your hotel.
Overnight: 4*/5* Hotel in Accra

DAY 6: 2024: ACCRA CITY TOUR / COOKING CLASS

Breakfast
Enjoy a delicious immersion in traditional Ghanaian cuisine with this two-in-one market tour and cooking class. You will first visit the bustling Makola Market – the biggest marketplace in Accra, where you’ll see and experience how locals go about shopping for a variety of goods. You will also help with picking the perfect ingredients for your dishes. Next, continue to the site of your cooking class for an interactive lesson on how to prepare a number of local staples, from jollof rice (rice cooked in red tomatoes sauce), to red red (beans stew with fried plantains) and many others. Start by getting familiarized with the various ingredients and spices that give Ghanaian dishes their distinct flavors. Try your hand at preparing some of these local staples, and later on enjoy your meal.
Lunch
After lunch visit the Arts and Crafts market to view a varied collection Ghanaian handicraft souvenir. This offers you opportunity to try out your bargaining skills on the local vendors and to “shop till you drop”. 
Return to your hotel in the evening
Overnight: 4*/5* Hotel in Accra

DAY 7: 2024: VISITS TO DEAF SCHOOL

Breakfast
Depart Accra to Mampong in the Eastern region of Ghana and visit the Demonstration School for the Deaf, widely known as the mother of Deaf Schools in Ghana which started in 1967 with 39 students now has a student population of over 400 students; a congenial atmosphere for training hearing impaired, deaf and deaf-blind students to become the best version of themselves in the
society. The school is mainly boarding and takes care of children at the crèche, primary, junior high, vocational and technical levels of education.
Lunch at a local restaurant
Return to Accra.
Overnight: 4*/5* Hotel in Accra

DAY 8: 2024: ACCRA – KUMASI / NAMING CEREMONY

Depart Accra to Kumasi in the Ashanti Region; the Kingdom of Gold, History and Culture. Stop enroute to pay a courtesy call and interact with the Chief and people in a Ghanaian village. Upon
arrival you will be led in a procession to the Paramount Chief’s Palace grounds where the whole village has already assembled. After a round of heartfelt welcomes and speeches the ceremony
begins. Immerse yourselves in authentic Ghanaian tradition and culture. Witness libation pouring, drumming and dancing in which you will be encouraged to participate. You will undergo a Traditional Welcome and Naming Ceremony according to Akan tradition.
Lunch at a local restaurant (extra cost)
After Lunch continue on your journey to Kumasi.
Check into your hotel
Dinner
Overnight: 4* Hotel in Kumasi

DAY 8: 2024: ACCRA – KUMASI / NAMING CEREMONY

Depart Accra to Kumasi in the Ashanti Region; the Kingdom of Gold, History and Culture. Stop enroute to pay a courtesy call and interact with the Chief and people in a Ghanaian village. Upon arrival you will be led in a procession to the Paramount Chief’s Palace grounds where the whole village has already assembled. After a round of heartfelt welcomes and speeches the ceremony begins. Immerse yourselves in authentic Ghanaian tradition and culture. Witness libation pouring, drumming and dancing in which you will be encouraged to participate. You will undergo a Traditional Welcome and Naming Ceremony according to Akan tradition.
Lunch at a local restaurant (extra cost)
After Lunch continue on your journey to Kumasi.
Check into your hotel
Dinner
Overnight: 4* Hotel in Kumasi

DAY 9: 2024: KUMASI CITY & CRAFTS VILLAGES TOUR

Breakfast
Depart after breakfast to visit a few Asante craft villages to participate in using simple tools and traditional technology to produce breath taking artifacts and designs from which you can send as souvenirs for friends and family back home. Ntonso – where the main economic activities are further enhancing and adding beauty to the traditional textile printing, see Adinkra cloth and tie- and-dye processing and get a demonstration of how intricate designs are applied to this sacred mourning cloth.
Adinkra cloth are designed by indigenous artist whose expertise lies in the textual printing using traditional symbols that express the spiritual, moral, political and socio- cultural philosophies of the Akan people and offers you opportunity to create your own designs. Adawumase where the famous Kente cloth is handmade on looms, in a time-honored tradition passed down through generations. In contrast, Asante Kente are designed using brighter colours and geometric patterns with unblemished precisions.
Here you have opportunity to learn the various processes involved in Kente cloth weaving. Start with setting the tread, loom and practice kente weaving under the guidance professional kente
weavers.   Return to Kumasi. Lunch at a local restaurant.    After lunch go on a city tour of Kumasi. Your first stop is Manhyia Palace Museum –the museum was built by the British in 1925 to receive Prempeh I when he returned from a quarter of a century
of exile in the Seychelles to resume residence in Kumasi. It was used by the Ashanti kings until 1974 and later converted to a museum which houses exhibits such as royal regalia, photographs, medals, furniture, drums and palanquins which are over two hundred years, a battle dress which dates back to 1900 and many objects of historical significance as well as effigies of all past kings and the current occupant of the Golden Stool.
Visit Prempeh II Jubilee Museum and Cultural Centre. The museum is a rather small yet extremely rich museum which displays a lot of Asante royal paraphernalia at the Kumasi Cultural Centre which also have on display a variety of really good and authentic handicrafts and artefacts where souvenirs are also sold.
Return to your hotel
Overnight: 4* Hotel in Kumasi

DAY 10: 2024: KUMASI – ELMINA & ENSLAVED RIVER

Breakfast and hotel checkout
Depart Kumasi after breakfast. Stop enroute at a palm wine tappers hut. Palm Wine is a local beverage with natural sweetness and very low alcohol content freshly tapped from the trunk of a
felled palm tree. The expert palm wine tapper using age long practices carefully makes a rectangular incising on the top trunk and bores a pencil hole at the bottom this is fitted with a
bamboo stick, the liquid drips through the bamboo and collected in a clay pot or a container. However when palm wine is not consumed within 2 days it become fermented. The fermented palm wine is further distilled to obtain a very high alcohol beverage locally called “AKPETESHIE” with more than 70% alcohol content. Depart to the Central Region. Drive along several farming villages and communities. Note the change in vegetative cover from forest belt to coastal savannah as you drive southwards across River Prah. Stop at Assin Manso Your final stop is a visit the burial site of the remains of two ancestors exhumed from New York’s Wall Street & Kingston Jamaica and re-interred on the Emancipation Day 1998. A third ancestor was also brought and interred by the Prime Minister of
Barbados in November 2019 as part of the “YEAR OF RETURN” GHANA 2019. Visit the DONKO NSUO (the Slave River) where the African captives were allowed to take their last bath in
waters of their native land. The European merchants branded their bodies for identification before they were marched to the Dungeon in Elmina and Cape Coast. This offers you opportunity to send a message to your ancestors.
Arrive in Elmina and have lunch at a local restaurant (on own account) Proceed after lunch to visit the Elmina Castle, the first Portuguese-built structure in sub-Saharan Africa (1482), for another comprehensive guided tour. Evidence of the infamous Slave Trade can be seen in the several colonial-era forts and castles which are now designated Unesco World Heritage Sites. . Proceed to explore Elmina Township and its several Posuban Shrines. Posuban are sacred meeting stations for the Akan traditional Military groups who were called upon to defend
their community during Wars.
Arrive and check into your hotel
Dinner at hotel
Overnight: 3* Beach Resort or Hotel in Elmina/Cape Coast

DAY 11: 2024: SLAVE DUNGEONS & UNESCO WORLD HERITAGE SITES

Breakfast
Visit the Kakum National Park. Go on a morning walk of the Kuntan Trail with its countless medicinal trees. For the young at heart experience the Canopy Walkway suspended 100 feet above
the forest floor and get a panoramic view of the flora and fauna of the remaining vestiges of the rainforest.
Continue to visit Cape Coast Castle which was originally started by the Swedes in 1652. It served as the headquarters and seat of the British colonial government until 1877. Go on a comprehensive tour of the Castle, the slave dungeons where enslaved Africans were incarcerated. Visit the negotiation hall where our ancestors were bargained for and sold. This UNESCO World Heritage Monument has been visited by several world personalities
including US President Barack and Michelle Obama, Steve Harvey, Boris Kodjoe, Danny Glover etc. Rest of afternoon free for reflection on our visits to the infamous dungeons.
Overnight: 3* Beach Resort or Hotel in Elmina/Cape Coast

DAY 12: 2024: ELMINA - ACCRA CITY TOUR

Breakfast
Depart Elmina after breakfast to Accra. Drive along the coast through several fishing villages and coconut lined beaches.
Arrive in Accra late morning and go on a city tour of Accra visiting the Casket making shop where various designs of caskets are produced based on the African belief of life after death. Therefore,
caskets are designed to reflect the earthly profession of the deceased with the belief that they can continue to practice this profession in the other world. Hence a bus driver will be buried in a bus, a teacher in a book, a doctor in a syringe etc.
Lunch at a local restaurant (on own account) Continue to Old Accra, this is a contrast of Victorian Dutch and post-colonial architectural. You will drive past. The light House built by the British to guide commercial ships into the Accra Harbour and James Fort built in 1673, Old Accra Square and the Post Office. Drive past Ussher Fort, built by the Dutch in 1649 as Fort Crèvecœur. Fort Crèvecœur was part of the Dutch Gold Coast. The Anglo-Dutch Gold Coast Treaty (1867), which defined areas of influence on the Gold Coast and was transferred to the British in 1868. Continue to the visiting the National Museum of History and Ethnography. This Museum houses a varied collection of Ghanaian artifacts. Objects in the archeology section range from the Stone Age period to the recent historical past. Those on permanent exhibition at the ethnography gallery include chief's regalia, indigenous Ghanaian musical instruments, gold weights, beads, traditional textiles, stools and pottery.
Farewell dinner with traditional Entertainment at your hotel
Overnight: 4*/5* Hotel in Accra

DAY 13: 2024: ACCRA/DEPARTURE

Breakfast
Morning at leisure for last minute packing
Hotel check out is at 12.00 noon
Evening transfer to the airport for check in and departure

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TRIP NOTES

NUMBER OF DAYS: 13

LAND TOURS BEGINS/ENDS:

Kenya / Ghana

PASSPORT REQUIRED:

Yes

TRAVEL DATE:

July 2024 - Dates will be announced soon!

GROUP SIZE:

27 Guests Max.

DEPOSIT PER PERSON:

$1000 non-refundable deposit per person / subject to change without notice.

FINAL PAYMENT DUE:

March 1st, 2024.

LAST DAY TO CANCEL:

March 1st, 2024

INTERPRETERS: 

Heart Cruises will provide ASL (American Sign Language) Interpreters for this trip.

TOUR FEATURES:

  • ASL interpreters

  • Park entrance fees in Lake Nakuru and Masai Mara Game reserve

  • 03 nights Fullboard Accommodation on Safari

  • 01 night at a 4* or 5* hotel in Nairobi on Bed and Breakfast basis

  • Experienced English-Speaking driver-guide

  • All road transportation and Game drives using two x Custom made Safari microbuses complete with pop up roof for enhanced game viewing

  • 01 litre bottled water per person per day in the Safari vehicle

  • 4Nights at a 4*/5* Hotel in Accra on Bed and Breakfast basis.
    *2Nights at a 4* Hotel in Kumasi on Bed and Breakfast basis.
    *2Nights at a 3* Beach Resort or Hotel in Elmina/Cape Coast on Bed and Breakfast basis.
    * Overland transportation with air-conditioned vehicle
    * Professional English Speaking Tour Guide
    * Entrance Fees to all Tour Sites as listed in Itinerary.
    * Internal flight Accra - Tamale
    * Meals as Outlined in Itinerary. B = Breakfast, L = Lunch, D = Dinner (Beverages extra)
    * Hotel Taxes

WHAT'S NOT INCLUDED:

  • International flights and applicable airport departure taxes 

  • Additional sightseeing or deviation from the itinerary

  • All items of a personal nature such as tobacco; laundry; phone calls, etc

  • drinks/beverages

  • Any Other Items not mentioned above

  • Medical/Travel Insurance

  • Kenya Visa

  • All Personal Expenses e.g. telephone bills, laundry etc.

  • COVID Testing Fee

  • Tips 

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TRAVEL INSURANCE

Heart Cruises, LLC  recommends that you purchase a travel protection plan to protect yourself and your trip investment from the unexpected. Now more than ever it’s extremely important to think about the unexpected. It is important to purchase the travel protection within 15 days of your initial invoice date in order to receive the most coverage. Consider travel protection for Trip Cancellation/Trip Interruption, Emergency Medical and Emergency Evacuation/Repatriation, Trip Delay, Baggage Delay and more

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CANCELLATION POLICY

Cancellation Schedule:

120-90 days before commencing travel - 80% of gross fare

89-0 days before commencing travel - 100% of gross fare

Day 1 - Istanbul

Prices are quoted in US Dollars. All itineraries and prices are subject to change without notice.

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