The alkaline soda of Lake Manyara is home to an incredible array of birdlife that thrives on its brackish waters. Pink flamingo stoops and graze by the thousands of colourful specks against the grey minerals of the lakeshore. Yellow-billed storks swoop and corkscrew on thermal winds rising up from the escarpment, and herons flap their wings against the sun-drenched sky. Even reluctant bird-watchers will find something to watch and marvel at within the national park

Lake Manyara famous tree-climbing lions are another reason to pay a visit to this park. The only kind of their species in the world, they make the ancient mahogany and elegant acacias their home during the rainy season and are a well-known but a rather rare feature of the northern park. In addition to the lions, the national park is also home to the largest concentration of baboons anywhere in the world a fact that accounts for interesting game viewing of large families of the primates.

Stretching for 50km along the base of the rusty-gold 600-meter high Rift Valley escarpment, Lake Manyara is a scenic gem, with a setting extolled by Ernest Hemingway as the loveliest I had seen in Africa.