Nestled at the foot of the lushly wooded slopes of Mount Meru, with uninterrupted views of the ice-pink peaks of Africa’s highest mountain, Mount Kilimanjaro, Mountain Lodge stands at the gateway to the famous Tanzanian ‘Northern Circuit’ of game parks and provides the ultimate action-packed start or relaxing finish to the safari of a lifetime. Secreted in the depths of a tree-shaded coffee plantation, wreathed in multi-coloured tresses of tumbling bougainvillea, cooled by mountain streams and strung like a necklace around the shores of an idyllic wooded lake, Mountain Village also offers a haven of calm and serenity just outside the hustle and bustle of Arusha, Tanzania’s premier ‘Safari Town’. 
 
Serena Mountain Village offers wide timbered decks with panoramic views over Lake Duluti, traditionally canvas-tented dining areas and a selection of ethnically-styled ‘Rondavel’ village-cluster rooms, each one neatly thatched with banana stems, lavishly embellished with ‘Makonde’ carvings and comfortably furnished in traditional safari style.

Location

Arusha is connected by daily internal flights with Dar es Salaam, Zanzibar and Mwanza. There are several flights weekly to the Seronera airstrip in Serengeti National Park, Musoma and Shinyanga. There are also frequent flights to Lake Manyara and Tarangire National Parks. Several international airlines have flights into Kilimanjaro International Airport (KIA), which is half way between Arusha and Moshi whilst a number of internal flights use Arusha Airport (about 8km out of town).  

Accommodation
 
The lodge offers: 36 twin bedrooms and 6 superior rooms.

The stone-built rooms are housed in a half-moon of traditional ‘rondavel’ circular dwellings with views over a bougainvillea-cloaked slope descending to the lake’s shores. Each ‘rondavel’, neatly thatched in banana stems and lined with close-weave basketwork, has been arranged to cluster in a village-style grouping around the shade of an ancient forest tree whilst the lavishly ‘Makonde’ carved doors radiate off the cool of a central flowered courtyard.   Charmingly appointed with spacious bathrooms, individual verandas and curved French windows giving views onto the tranquil lakeside beauty, the rooms have been decorated in the traditional safari style and feature net-draped beds, soft lamps, intricately carved furniture and pastel-patterned drapes

Services include:

An imaginative range of lakeside sundowners, private picnics, and specialist cultural entertainments.Express check-in and out plus 24-hour Forex services. Full housekeeping services (laundry, valet, babysitting, children’s menus and dining, and shoeshine). Full medical back-up and emergency evacuation facilities. Extensively stocked Africana Gift Shop. Beauty treatments, massage and hairdressing. 

Dining and bars
 
The traditional khaki-and-canvas safari-styled dining room overlooks the lake’s flower-fringed slopes and features an open-air bar area, a relaxed candlelit atmosphere and menu choices that include traditional safari favourites and internationally themed menus alike. 
 
Conference and event facilities
 
The Mountain Village Business and Entertainment Facilities include state-of-the-art presentation facilities: A full selection of projection TV, screen, video, video conferencing and audiovisual equipment.

Full conference organisation service to include: badges, registration desks, delegate packs, delegate services, specialist delegate gifts, secretarial back up and communication links, tailor-made itineraries, private safaris and individually planned and themed menus.

A full range of imaginative incentive packages and fully tailored accommodation packages is also available.

Magical Mountain Marriages Options Include:

Bougainvillea-bowered wedding ceremony by the lake.
Individually themed champagne reception under canvas.
Sumptuous floral arrangements, bouquets and buttonholes.
Private candle-lit honeymoon dinner for two.
Luxurious honeymoon Suite supplied with tropical fruit and chilled champagne.
Cultural dancing.
Colourful range of guest entertainment.
Photography and videoing of your special day.
Special accommodation packages for the entire wedding party.

Special Occasions

At Mountain Village we have the experience, the team and the equipment to cater for a wide range of private functions, receptions, parties and formal events. We are also adept in making your special occasion not merely memorable, but entirely unique.

Services include:

Individually themed menus.
Tented dinners, starlit bars and lakeside cocktails.
Entertaining under canvas – with campfires, hurricane lamps and safari cuisine.

Specialist cocktails:

Champagne sundowners overlooking Lake Duluti.
Live music, vivid cultural entertainment.
Dancing – inside or under the stars.
Floral decorations or colour coordinated style themes.
Individually styled guest gifts.

Child-friendly

All Serena lodges are child-friendly and offer: family rooms, additional beds, cots, children’s mealtimes and menus, babysitting services, educational materials, wildlife presentations, guided nature walks.

What to see and do:

The Town of Arusha

One of Tanzania’s most developed and fastest growing towns, the bustling ‘Safari Town’ of Arusha is a hive of arrival and departure activity as countless 4WD safari vehicles load up with provisions and set off with their passengers into the endless, game-teeming plains of the mighty Serengeti National Park. Established in 1900 as a minor German military garrison, Arusha lies halfway between the Cape and Cairo and was once a major trading post for the local Waarusha and Wameru tribes. Nowadays it is not only the country’s most active tourism centre but also an important regional business and administrative centre and host to a colourful array of street markets, museums, craft shops, Makonde carving workshops, street cafes, restaurants and bars.

The Arusha National Park

The smallest yet one of the most beguiling of Tanzania’s National Parks, the 137-sq-km Arusha National Park offers an unrivalled diversity of safari experiences due to the three distinct ecological zones of its composition. Activities range from a trek up the forested slopes of a fifteen million years old extinct volcano called Ngurdoto Crater, the discovery of the seven alkaline and flamingo-frosted Momela Lakes, which are the haunt of some 380 species of water birds, or an ascent to the misted heights of Mount Meru. At 4,566m above sea level Mount Meru is the 5th highest mountain in Africa and offers one of the continent’s most rewarding climbs. Once as high as Kilimanjaro, a cataclysmic explosion two hundred and fifty thousand years ago blew out the entire eastern side of the Mountain, leaving only a vast crater and ash cone in its wake. 

The Tanzanian Coffee Industry

Despite the fact that coffee was not planted in Tanzania until the turn of the 20th century, when it was imported by the Jesuit missionaries of Reunion Island, Tanzania is now world famous for the excellence of its coffee, most particularly the Coffea arabica grown on the slopes of Mount Meru and around the Arusha region. This distinctively flavoured coffee provides the foundation for some of the finest blends of coffee in the world and accounts for 75% of Tanzania’s coffee exports. At Mountain Village guests may wander through the coffee plantations and enjoy a ‘tasting session’ on the estate.

The activities on offer at Mountain Lodge include:

- Morning bird walks around Lake Duluti with our resident naturalist.
- An extensive selection of nature trails looping around the lake and through the shaded groves of neighbouring coffee plantations, with picnic stops and a unique ‘coffee tasting’ session.
- Mountain biking around the lake and coffee plantation circuits. 
- Walking and Jogging around the lake and plantation circuits.
- Canoeing on the lake in sturdy 2-man canoes.
- Trips to the craters, alkaline lakes, forests and peaks of nearby Arusha National Park.
- Mountain Village serves as an ideal base camp from which to conquer the snow- capped peaks of Kilimanjaro, Africa’s highest mountain (5, 895m).
- For those who prefer a slightly more unusual but equally rewarding climb, there is also nearby Mount Meru, Africa’s 5th highest mountain, which offers endless opportunities for climbing, hiking, trekking or walking. 
- A number of villages in the Arusha region belong to the Cultural Tourism Programme and offer guests an unprecedented opportunity to experience the local people’s lifestyle by means of visits to such venues as; Maasai homesteads, traditional cattle markets or women’s handicrafts cooperatives.
- Atmospheric ‘Sundowners’ idyllically staged on wooded cliffs above the lake’s mirrored waters as clouds of white egret come home to roost in their forest home.
Wildlife and cultural talks, videos and film shows
 
Serena Active

- Nature trails around Lake Duluti and through the neighbouring coffee plantations.
- Mountain biking around the lake and coffee circuits
- Mountain climbing – on Mounts Kilimanjaro and Meru
- Hiking and trekking in nearby Arusha National Park
- Canoeing on idyllic Lake Duluti
- ‘Après action’ massages
- Ornithological tours around the lake and woodlands.