Lake Manyara

Lake Manyara is a shallow fresh-water lake in Tanzania. Manyara is the seasonal home of roughly three million lesser and greater pink flamingos. The flamingos blanket the lake in a soft tint of dusty pink. When seeing this pink opus of flamingos and feathers from a distance it's not hard to understand why Hemingway once called it "the loveliest [lake] in Africa.”

Manyara forms part of a system of four lakes within the Great Rift Valley. The three other lakes are Lake Natron (Tanzania), Lake Bogoria (Kenya), and Lake Nakuru (Kenya). The four lakes serve as a single habitat for the entire flamingo population of East Africa. The flamingos are seasonal and so when conditions change in one of the four lakes, the birds fly to the others.

By using the lakes in a migratory rotation, greater and lesser flamingos have been able to sustain a relatively constant population of about 4 million birds over the last two decades.

Lake Manyara is home to the Lake Manyara National Park. Although it is one of Tanzania's smallest parks it is still one of the most ecologically diverse game reserves in the country.

The lake is the playground of baboons, hippos, impalas, elephants, wildebeest, buffalo, warthogs and giraffe. Manyara is also renowned for its tree climbing lions and large numbers of leopards. You'll need some luck to see these predators though, so don't be disappointed if they elude you. The lake is a birder's paradise, with over 300 recorded migratory birds.

July to October (the dry season) is the best time to visit if you want to see large mammals, while November to June (the wet season) is the best time for bird watching.

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