Lake Manyara National Park is a beautiful little park, tucked in between the Rift Escarpment and the lake itself.  Stretching for 50km along the base of the rusty-gold 600-metre high Rift Valley escarpment, this small park is one of the area's best kept secrets.
 
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 outsized forest hornbills honk cacophonously in the high canopy.

Contrasting with the intimacy of the forest is the grassy floodplain and its expansive views eastward, across the alkaline lake, to the jagged blue volcanic peaks that rise from the endless Maasai Steppes. Large buffalo, wildebeest and zebra herds congregate on these grassy plains, as do 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 favored haunt of Manyara’s legendary tree-climbing lions and impressively tusked elephants. Squadrons of banded mongoose dart between the acacias, while 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 waterbirds such as pelicans, cormorants and storks.

One of the unique features of Lake Manyara is its groundwater forest. Almost all the rain in this region falls on the Ngorongoro Highlands above Lake Manyara. This water permeates down through the rock until it meets the fault of the Rift Escarpment, where it is forced upwards towards the surface along the foot of the escarpment. The forest is therefore watered from below all year round and whilst the rest of the landscape turns yellow as the dry season progresses, Manyara remains an oasis of greenery, which acts as a magnet for animal populations which migrate into the park at this time.

This water which is being forced up to the surface here is heavily loaded with volcanic minerals such as phosphates and sulphates. As the lake here evaporates under the hot summer sun, the concentrations of these minerals increases, giving the lake a colored tinge and attracting the flamingo which feed on the algae that thrive in this hostile environment. Lake Manyara plays host to good populations of barbel (catfish) and hippopotamus, as well as large flocks of flamingoes and storks for most of the year.

In two locations within the park the ground-water comes to the surface as hot springs, but these are more of the nature of a small leak than a full-blown geyser : kiswahili : Maji Moto = hot water. The hot springs at Maji Moto are the famous location for one of Hemmingway's hunting camps, portrayed in his book The Green Hills of Africa.

Large herds of elephants have also made the region famous.  In addition, expect regular sightings of baboon, buffalo, giraffe, zebra, impala, klipspringer, hippo and flamingo, and the famous tree-climbing lions.