Stretching for 50km along the base of the rusty gold600-meter 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. From the entrance gate, the road winds through an expanse of lush jungle-like groundwater forest where hundred-strong baboon troops lounge nonchalantly along the roadside, blue monkeys scamper nimbly between the ancient mahogany trees, dainty bushbuck tread warily through the shadows, and outsize forest hornbills honk cacophonously in the high canopy.
In the early morning, we will collect you from your hotel in Arusha and drive you to Lake Manyara National Park. The park encompasses the northwest bank and part of the alkaline Lake Manyara which itself rests in the Great Rift Valley.
The park is perhaps best known for its flamingos, pelicans, and cormorants but it is also the home to a few hundred other species of birds; it is, therefore, a paradise for ornithologists. Next to a great variety of birds, the “Big Game” can also be seen
With a bit of, luck you might see elephants in the wooded regions and with even more fortune the tree-climbing lions.
Indeed, it was thought for a long time that the Lake Manyara National Park is the only place where lions can be found with this atypbehaviorviour of climbing trees. Baboons and vervet monkeys are also found amongst the forested areas and in the more open spaces, giraffes nibble at the fresh leaves while the various types of antelopes common to the region browse for tasty shoots.
After a picnic lunch, there will be more time for further game and wildlife watching before it is time to return to Arusha.
