Lake Manyara National Park

Size: 330 sq km (about 205 sq miles), of which about 200 sq km (about 125 sq miles) is lake

Location: In northern Tanzania, 126 km (about 80 miles) west of Arusha

Getting here: By road, charter or scheduled flight from Arusha, en-route to Serengeti and Ngorongoro Crater.

To do: Canoeing, with plans for forest walks on the escarpment. Cultural tours, bike tours and abseiling outside the park.

Best time: Dry season (July-October) for large mammals, wet season (November-June) for bird watching, the waterfalls and canoeing.

Accommodation: One luxury tented camp, public bandas and campsites inside the park; 1 luxury tented camp and 2 lodges perched on the Rift Wall; guest houses and campsites in nearby town.

Cradled in the glory of its surrounding below the sheer majesty of the Rift Valley wall, Lake Manyara lies serene, spreading in a heat haze backed by a thin green band of forest and the sheer 600 meter red and brown cliffs of the escarpment.

A wedge of surprisingly varied vegetation sustains a wealth of wildlife, nourished by chattering streams bubbling out of the escarpment base and waterfalls spilling over the cliff. Acacia woodland shelters the park’s famous but elusive tree-climbing lions, along with squadrons of mongoose feasting on the trail of buffalo and elephant – the most pachyderms per square kilometer in Tanzania

Deep in the south of the ark, hot springs bubble to the surface in the shadow of the escarpment. Hippo wallow near the lake’s borders of the sedge. The park hosts 400 varieties of birds, including thousands of red billed quelea flitting over the water like swarms of giant insects; pelicans, cormorants and pink streaks of thousands of flamingo and their perpetual migration.

Entering Manyara from the village of Mto wa Mbu an eclectic market town where several tribes converge to form a linguistic mix that is the richest in Africa.