Lake Manyara National Park

Located beneath the cliffs of the Manyara Escarpment, on the edge of the Rift Valley, Lake Manyara National Park offers varied ecosystems, incredible bird life, and breathtaking views.

This is one of the best bird watching spot, which is also famous for flamingos, hippos etc. inhabiting the lakes. That is why Lake Safaris here is undisputedly the most sought after safari affair you ever have. Apart from flamingos, hippos and aquatic wonders, the whole park is rich in wildlife and incredible numbers of birds.

The alkaline soda of Lake Manyara is home to an incredible array of bird life that thrives on its brackish waters. Pink flamingo stoop and graze by the thousands colourful specks against the grey minerals of the lake shore. But an assortment of bird life is just a small part of the sizzling charm Lake Manyara National Park displays. The hippo pond is another. And so is the rich wildlife perfect for game viewing.

Tree climbing lions, Leopards, cheetahs are famous for their part in creating heart stopping game viewing. But chance to view good numbers of elephant, buffalo and wildebeest along with plenty of Masai giraffe, zebra, waterbuck, warthog and impala, blue monkeys, dik-dik, gazelles, , impala, and many more wild animals is not something to miss.

Stretching for 50km along the base of the rusty-gold 600-metre high Rift Valley escarpment, Lake Manyara is a scenic gem, with a setting extolled by Ernest Hemingway as “the loveliest I had seen in Africa”.

The compact game-viewing circuit through Manyara offers a virtual microcosm of the Tanzanian safari experience.

You will find Manyara is quite capable of entertaining without treading in water world. The tree climbing lion and leopards are famous for their tree antics whereas blue monkeys, baboons swinging from trees to trees are definitely considered exhilarating. Not to mention the plain games where dainty bushbuck tread warily through the shadows, and the outsized forest hornbills honk cacophonously in the high canopy.

The high density of elephants increases the charm of Manyara hundred folds. So a game viewing is so not an unnatural choice for safari seekers. Large buffalo, wildebeest and zebra herds congregate on these grassy plains, and so do the giraffes – some so dark in coloration that they appear to be black from a distance.

Inland of the floodplain, a narrow belt of acacia woodland is the favoured haunt of Manyara’s legendary tree-climbing lions and impressively tusked elephants. Squadrons of banded mongoose dart between the acacias, whereas the diminutive Kirk’s dik-dik forages in their shade. Pairs of klipspringer are often seen silhouetted on the rocks above a field of searing hot springs that steams and bubbles adjacent to the lakeshore in the far south of the park.

Manyara provides the perfect introduction to Tanzania’s birdlife. More than 400 species have been recorded, and even a first-time visitor to Africa might reasonably expect to observe 100 of these in one day. Highlights include thousands of pink-hued flamingos on their perpetual migration, as well as other large water birds such as pelicans, cormorants and storks.