Lake Manyara National Park

Overview

With the lush green vegetation, Lake Manyara National parks is the best place of being introduce to the iconic wildlife safari experiences. The Park derives its name from a plant called Euphorbia tirucalli, known as Emanyara in Maasai language and covers an area of 648.7 km2.

Lake Manyara, having soda ash water is the perfect habitat for thousands of flamingos, pelicans, cormorant and many other water birds making it a perfect birding destination. The Yellow Baboons and Blue Monkeys are also seen in common in and outside the park. The amazing Great Rift Valley escarpment make your safari to this park unforgettable.

The Park has remarkable attractions most notably the tree climbing lions, Marang’ forest, hot spring, ground water forest, diversity of bird species and the Great Rift valley.

The scenic beauty of this park makes it worth enough for a visit,

Weather & Climate

Things to see in Lake Manyara National Park

1. Wildlife in its Natural environment

The presence of many unique wild animal species gives strong reasons for a safari in Manyara.

The Park is famous for Lake Manyara’s climbing lions, herds of elephants and a huge number of baboons. The varied landscape attracts a rang e of other games including giraffe, wildebeest, Impala buffalo, waterbuck, hippo, flamingo, zebra, warthog, dik -dik and more.

2. Birds, Lesser flamingos on Lake Manyara

When you visit Lake Manyara, you may spot a thousand flamingos flocking on this soda-ash Lake. The soda ash water provides a quite conducive environment for the flamingos to have food.

3. Hotsprings

The water in this spring has a temperature of 76.5 0C heated by volcanic activities. Lesser flamingos depend on the water for nourishment, and its mineral composition is thought to have therapeutic benefits.

4. Ground Water Forest/ Marang Forest

This lush evergreen is home to numerous bird species, primates, and bushbucks. Marang’ Forest

lies above the escarpment and harbors baboons, blue monkeys, elephants, buffaloes, duikers,  leopards and many forest birds species.

Things to do in Lake Manyara National Park

The main visitor’s activity is daytime game driving, although Manyara has started to offer night safaris recently.  Set in the escarpment of the Great Rift Valley, the park has a lot of activities to explore such as game drive, Canoeing, Cultural tours, Mountain bike tours, treetops, and Bird watching

Game drive

Day and night Game drives in Lake Manyara National Park give you a chance to maximize your safari experiences all you have to do is relax and see what mother nature has to offer throughout you safari. The game drives can be done in the early morning, afternoon, evening and during the night. The night game drive is magnificent as you may get the chance to see nocturnal animals like leopards, civets and more.

Bird Watching

When you get to this park which is the paradise of birds you will easily get to see a lot of birds from the start of your safari to the end. Hence bird watching activities are highly recommended especially during the mornings and evenings. If you are lucky enough you may spot the flocks of, the migratory birds like; flamingos, cormorants, white pelican, yellow-billed stork, and pink-backed pelican.

Cultural tour

Lake Manyara National Park is surrounded by many cultural activities as it is a home of many tribes of tribe, therefore you get a chance to experience various culture and participate in different visiting community development projects, visiting local communities, and farm tours

Canoeing

You can go for canoeing in Lake Manyara when the water level is high, and you may get to see the landscape, escarpment of the rift valley and beautiful nature.

Bike riding tours

Biking around the slope of Lake Manyara is an experience you can’t miss. Maximize your safari experiences in this scenic park full of activities to explore.

Treetop/ Canopy tour: Manyara Treetop Walkway takes you on a sky-high adventure through the beautiful forest of Lake Manyara. Walk among the treetops and experience untouched nature and wildlife from a unique perspective. This 370m airwalk and 18m off the ground starts with a short board-walk that gradually rises from ground level up through the canopy of the forest. You walk over a series of suspension bridges with thick netting on the sides. Each of the bridges end on a viewing deck situated around tree trunks. These treetop perfect places to enjoy life in the canopy amongst butterflies, monkeys and birds.