Lake Manyara National Park

Lake Manyara is compact, takes about two hours to drive from Arusha, and is consistently underestimated.u00a0

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The park runs along the base of the Rift Valley escarpment, with the lake occupying most of its floor. The groundwater forest at the entrance is dense and cool, home to large troops of baboons and blue monkeys, and elephant families that move through the trees. Beyond the forest the landscape opens into floodplains and then the lake shore, where alkaline conditions draw flamingos in numbers that shift with the seasons.

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The tree-climbing lions are the park’s most talked-about residents. The behaviour is genuinely unusual and not fully understood. Lions in most parts of Africa stay on the ground. Here, particularly in the fig trees around the floodplain, they climb and rest in the branches. Whether you find them depends on the day, but the search takes you through some of the best game-viewing terrain in the park.

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Over 400 bird species have been recorded here, making it one of the finest birding locations on the northern circuit. Even for travellers who don’t consider themselves birders, the concentration of species around the lake shore tends to change that view fairly quickly.

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A full day gives you time in the forest in the morning, the lake shore at midday, and the floodplains in the late afternoon when the light is at its best. You return to Arusha in the evening.