Lake Manyara

Lake Manyara National Park is a small spectacular park of 325sq km situated between the Great Rift Valley escarpment and Lake Manyara, a shallow alkaline lake supporting thousands of flamingo. The best known feature of Lake Manyara National Park is its legendary tree-climbing lions. It also has hot springs which originate from rainfall in the mountains. It has varied vegetation from marshland and reed beds to open grassland and acacia woodland and a diversity of wildlife to match, including blue monkeys, baboons, hippo, buffalo, zebra and elephant. The broken forests and escarpment also make it good country for leopard. Huge troops of baboons - possibly Africa's largest density of this particular animal - are an obvious feature. Birding is well catered for here as well.

Being only a short drive, both from the town of Arusha and also from the Ngorongoro Crater, the area can suffer from heavy game viewing traffic (it is also increasingly encroached upon by human settlement), which can detract from its appeal to some extent.