Why you sleep in Karatu
Karatu is the last town before the Ngorongoro gate, and that single fact explains nearly everything about it. Accommodation on the crater rim itself is scarce and expensive; Karatu, about twenty-five minutes below the gate, has a great deal of it at every level. A very large share of northern circuit itineraries therefore spend a night or two here and drive up in the morning, rather than sleeping inside the conservation area. How many nights the circuit as a whole needs, and where they are best spent, is worked through in the guide to how long a Tanzanian itinerary has to be.
It is a better arrangement than it sounds. Karatu sits in green, hilly farming country — coffee, wheat, maize and vegetables — at an altitude that makes the evenings cool and the mornings sharp. The Ngorongoro Conservation Area Authority maintains an information office in the town itself, beside the road up to the gate. And there is enough around Karatu to fill a day that has nothing to do with a crater, which matters if your trip has a spare morning in it.
Where Karatu sits
Karatu District Council is one of the seven councils of Arusha Region. It was set up as an administrative council in 1997, out of Mbulu Council, and registered in its own right in 2000. The council gives the district headquarters at Karatu town as about 150 kilometres from Arusha, on the road that carries on through to Mwanza and Musoma — which is why Karatu is a working commercial town rather than a purpose-built tourist stop.
The road geography is worth holding in your head, because Karatu is a hinge:
- East and downhill: Mto wa Mbu, the Rift escarpment and Lake Manyara National Park, then Arusha.
- West and uphill: Lodoare Gate, which the conservation authority gives as the main entrance to the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, and beyond it the crater, the highlands and the road across to the Serengeti.
- South-west: the country falling away towards Lake Eyasi.
The district borders Mbulu to the south, Iramba and Meatu to the north-west, Ngorongoro District to the north, and Monduli and Babati districts to the south-east.
What Karatu gives you access to
Karatu’s value is positional. From a bed here you are within an easy morning’s drive of the crater rim, within an hour or so of Lake Manyara, and on the road to the Serengeti. For a trip that is doing Manyara, Ngorongoro and the Serengeti in sequence, Karatu is the natural hinge between the first two and the long drive west.
The crater descent, the highland craters, Olduvai and the rest of the conservation area are covered on the Ngorongoro page and in the game drive guide. What a Karatu page can usefully add is the practical point that gate timing, not distance, governs your morning: the drive up is short, and the queue at Lodoare in high season is not. Sleeping below the gate rather than inside the conservation area also changes what you pay, because the conservation area is run by a separate authority charging on its own terms rather than under the national park tariff; the guide to what a northern circuit trip costs at the gates sets out how the two differ.
A day in Karatu that is not a game drive
Endoro: waterfalls and elephant caves
The best walk near the town is on the southern edge of the conservation area, facing Karatu. The Ngorongoro Conservation Area Authority describes the Endoro entrance gate as about 6.5 kilometres from Karatu town, with a further gate near Gibb’s Farm on the way in, and puts the walk to the falls at two to three hours of moderate hiking through forest. The Endoro River flows all year from the crater rim, fed by highland springs, and the authority gives the fall itself as dropping over forty metres.
A few minutes’ walk from the waterfall are the elephant caves — hollows dug into the hillside over many years by elephants working at mineral-rich soil with their tusks. Buffalo, elephant and bush pig use the forest, so this is a guided walk rather than a stroll. See the waterfall hiking guide and the forest walk guide.
Coffee and farms
Karatu District Council names coffee and vegetable farming as what the district is known for, and estate visits around the town are one of the standard fills for a spare afternoon. The coffee tours guide covers the difference between an estate visit, which explains the industry, and a village visit, which explains the household. The farm tours guide covers the rest of the district’s agriculture, which is most of what you drive past.
The people of the district
Karatu is Iraqw country. The Iraqw are a Cushitic-speaking people whose language is unrelated to the Bantu languages spoken across most of Tanzania, and whose terraced, tightly-farmed hillsides are the landscape you are looking at from the road. The council also names the Hadzabe among the peoples visitors come to meet from Karatu; the Hadzabe live in the country around Lake Eyasi, south-west of the town, and the Hadzabe cultural visits guide is worth reading in full before arranging one, because this is the single most easily done badly visit in northern Tanzania. Datoga pastoralists and blacksmiths live in the same area; see the Datoga guide. General village visits around Karatu itself are covered in the village tours guide.
On wheels and on foot
The farm tracks around Karatu are good cycling — see the mountain biking guide — and the hills behind the town give straightforward day walking without a park fee or a ranger. There are caves in the district as well; the cave exploration guide covers what is genuinely visitable in Tanzania and what only circulates as a name.
When to come
Karatu is in the bimodal rainfall zone, with Vuli from October to December and Masika from March to May, on the Tanzania Meteorological Authority’s definitions. The highland position means it is wetter and greener than the plains below the escarpment and noticeably cooler, and the roads on the farmland around the town turn to heavy mud in the rains in a way the tarmac highway does not.
Pack for cold mornings. People arriving from the coast or from a hot day at Manyara routinely underestimate this, and the crater rim above Karatu is colder again. The month-by-month guide to the northern circuit covers what each season does to the farm roads and to the highlands above the town.
Common questions about Karatu
How far is Karatu from the Ngorongoro gate?
Short — a drive of roughly half an hour up to Lodoare Gate, which the conservation authority gives as the main entrance to the Ngorongoro Conservation Area. The variable is the queue at the gate in high season rather than the distance.
Why do itineraries sleep in Karatu instead of on the crater rim?
Because there is far more accommodation in and around Karatu, across a much wider range, and the drive up to the gate is short. Rim accommodation is limited and correspondingly scarce in peak months.
How far is Karatu from Arusha?
Karatu District Council gives about 150 kilometres, on the main road that continues west towards Mwanza and Musoma.
What is there to do in Karatu on a non-safari day?
The Endoro waterfall and elephant cave walk on the edge of the conservation area, coffee and farm visits, cycling on the farm tracks, hill walking, and cultural visits in the district and towards Lake Eyasi. It is one of the better northern circuit towns for a day that does not involve a vehicle.
Who lives around Karatu?
Mainly the Iraqw, a Cushitic-speaking farming people whose terraced hillsides define the landscape around the town. Hadzabe and Datoga communities live to the south-west towards Lake Eyasi, and are visited from Karatu as well as from Eyasi itself.
Is Karatu cold?
Cool, and cold in the mornings — it sits high in farming country below the Ngorongoro highlands. Warm clothing is worth having here and is essential on the rim above.
