Reviews of Lake Manyara (From 13 Acclaimed Safari Experts)

Expert

Ariadne van Zandbergen –

ZA

Visited: Multiple times

Ariadne is a renowned African wildlife photographer whose work is featured in many well-known guidebooks and magazines.

8 people found this review helpful.

Elephants, Tree-climbing Lions & Dramatic Scenery

Overall rating

4/5

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Lake Manyara National Park is one of Tanzania’s most scenic parks. The lakeshore with its floodplains gives way to acacia woodland below the steep walls of the Rift Valley escarpment. As you enter the park, you’ll find yourself in lush groundwater forest, a favorite habitat for blue monkeys and baboons. The canopy is always alive with birdsong, most notably the nasal calls of the silvery-cheeked hornbills.

Lake Manyara is famous for its tree-climbing lions, and I’ve been lucky to witness this little-understood behavior here on several occasions. Another draw is the big elephant population. I've had some very close encounters with massive tuskers, which tend to be particularly relaxed here. The park’s other claim to fame is the opportunity to see flamingos. Unfortunately, the road that used to run close to the shore has been closed for several years and might not be reopened. At present you won’t be able to see the flamingos and big flocks of other water-associated birds, unless you head out by canoe, one of the many activities on offer.

Oh, and don’t miss out on the treetop walkway at the park’s entrance. The 370m-/1,200ft-long airwalk takes you through the forest canopy at a thrilling height of 18m/60ft. This unique opportunity to get a bird’s eye perspective of the forest is more than worthwhile. The entrance area of the park gets very crowded with day visitors arriving midmorning or in the afternoon. Therefore, the best time to visit is very early in the morning.

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Expert

Philip Briggs –

ZA

Visited: Multiple times

Philip is an acclaimed travel writer and author of many guidebooks, including the Bradt guides to Uganda, Tanzania, Kenya and South Africa.

6 people found this review helpful.

Tanzania in Microcosm

Overall rating

4/5

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The dramatic setting of Lake Manyara was once extolled by Ernest Hemingway as “the loveliest that I had seen in Africa” and it is difficult to take issue with this bold assertion. The lake, a fluctuating alkaline body set within a shallow sump, is hemmed in by the 600m-/2,000ft-high golden-brown Rift Valley escarpment, and is also overlooked by a scattering of extinct volcanoes that rise in splendid isolation from the open plains of the Maasai Steppes.

With habitats ranging from lush groundwater forest and open water to acacia woodland and open grassy floodplains, Manyara offers a microcosmic introduction to the habitats and wildlife of northern Tanzania. It also provides a perfect introduction to the country’s stunning birdlife, with a good possibility of ticking 100 species in one day, including several birds of prey, massive forest hornbills, large flocks of pink flamingos and flotillas of pelicans.

Manyara is famed for its legendary tree-climbing lions, though these days you’re just as likely to see these mighty predators in arboreal action in the Seronera area of Serengeti. We’ve had great sighting of lions up trees on two of our most recent three visits to Manyara, in both cases in the boughs of roadside acacias close to the Maji Moto springs. Another mammalian highlight is the hundred-strong baboon troops that lounge alongside the road through the groundwater forest.

When the lake is at its normal level, an excellent hippo pool can now be viewed from a stilted wooden platform reached via a road through an area of marsh that offers superb conditions for aquatic bird photography, using your car as a hide. However, the pool was submerged following the heavy rains in 2019 and it remained so when we visited three years later in 2022. The expanded lake also extended across much of the floodplain in 2022, which meant that wildlife viewing was far poorer than on any of our previous visits. Hopefully this is a temporary setback.

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Lizzie Williams –

ZA

Visited: Multiple times

Lizzie is a reputed guidebook writer and author of the Footprint guides to South Africa, Namibia, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and Zimbabwe.

4 people found this review helpful.

A Diverse Variety of Landscapes in a Small Area, Sheltered by the Magnificent Rift Valley Escarpment

Overall rating

4/5

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Lake Manyara is easily seen from the road that climbs up the Rift Valley, where all safari vehicles stop for a gawk at the pink flamingos, but what I like about this park is its simplicity for a game drive. There’s essentially one track through the permanent oasis of lush greenery.

Despite looking for a tail dangling down through the branches, I have never seen Manyara’s famous tree-climbing lions (a rare sight), and have had better luck with cats on the short plains of the other parks. But I’ve seen numerous plains game, elephant among the giant acacia and fig trees, pods of hippo in the Simba River, and pelicans, storks, geese, herons and cormorants, which share the lake with the flamingos. It’s a perfect accompaniment to a longer safari to the Ngorongoro Crater and Serengeti.

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Expert

Mark Eveleigh –

UK

Visited: September

Mark is a travel writer who grew up in Africa and has written over 700 titles for Condé Nast Traveller, Travel Africa, BBC Wildlife and others.

4 people found this review helpful.

Lake Manyara NP is famous for its tree-climbing lions and astounding views over the lake

Overall rating

4/5

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We drove through Lake Manyara National Park en-route to Ngorongoro and Serengeti, and it was pretty much our initiation to Tanzania’s parks. The views are spectacular (as is to be expected in this part of Tanzania) and Lake Manyara is a perfect warm-up to Ngorongoro. The lions eluded us (although there were plenty in Ngorongoro Crater) but the lake, set below the towering Rift Valley escarpment, is an unforgettable sight in itself. Hemingway called the countryside around Manyara ‘the loveliest that I had seen in Africa’. I wouldn’t want to argue with him.

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Anthony Ham –

AU

Visited: Multiple times

Anthony is a photographer and writer for travel magazines and Lonely Planet, including the guides to Kenya and Botswana & Namibia.

3 people found this review helpful.

Lake Manyara: Lions in Trees

Overall rating

4/5

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This thin sliver of a park is often bypassed in the rush between Tarangire and Ngorongoro and the Serengeti, but that would be a mistake. For a start, the dramatic escarpment that forms the western wall of the Great Rift Valley makes this one of the easiest places in East Africa to get a sense of the drama of the great gash that slices through the heart of the continent. And then there’s the promise of tree-climbing lions – these lions defy nature and, unlike other parks where lions take to the trees, have done so since before tourists began arriving here. Elephants, buffalos and blue monkeys are other highlights.

And Lake Manyara has another very special reason to visit – this is one of few East African parks where night drives and walking safaris are both possible (though not at the same time). And if, like me, you’ve read and reread Peter Matthiessen’s The Tree Where Man Was Born, you’ll recognise that some of his most famous scenes come from Lake Manyara.

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Expert

Kim Wildman –

AU

Visited: June

Kim is a travel writer who authored and updated over 15 guidebooks, including Lonely Planet's South Africa and Bradt's Tanzania guides.

3 people found this review helpful.

Lions in Trees

Overall rating

4/5

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Lake Manyara National Park is an ideal stop en route to/from Ngorongoro and the Serengeti. The park may be small in comparison to its northern counterparts, but it’s excellent for bird watching and a good area to find elephants. What’s more, the scenic park is also renowned for its potential to see its legendary tree-climbing lions. While sightings are not always common, on my last visit I was treated to the spectacle of three young lion cubs playfully fighting with each other for the best position in the crook of an acacia branch. Over the years I’ve found it’s best to visit the park in the morning as it is pleasantly quiet with most tourist groups choosing to stop via the park in the later afternoon on their return to Arusha.

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Expert

Brian Jackman –

UK

Visited: Multiple times

Brian is an award winning travel writer, author of safari books and regular contributor to magazines such as BBC Wildlife and Travel Africa.

Jewel of the Northern Circuit

Overall rating

4/5

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Set at the foot of the Great Rift escarpment, Lake Manyara is small enough to see in a day but deserves a longer stay. The park itself is a long, narrow strip with the escarpment on one side and the lake on the other, and begins with a beautiful expanse of groundwater forest frequented by bushbuck, blue monkeys and swallowtail butterflies. Elephant are common – this is where Iain and Oria Douglas-Hamilton lived and wrote their African wildlife classic: ‘Among the Elephants’. But Manyara’s top attractions are its flamingo flocks and tree-climbing lions. This is altogether a terrific park for birding. But in six visits, although I have seen plenty of lions, I have never seen one reclining in the big overhanging acacias. The farther you drive the quieter the park becomes. A lot of visitors don’t even make it as far as the Endabash River, so it’s well worth pushing on to Maji Moto Kubwa Hot Springs, even though you have to come back along the same route.

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