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| Tanzania National Parks and Reserves |
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| Arusha National Park |
The park has three distinct zones: Ngurdoto Crater (often discribed as a mini Ngorongoro), the Momella Lakes, a group of shallow alkaline lakes fed by underground streams, and Mount Meru, one of the most rewarding mountains to climb in Africa.
Animals here include buffalo, elephant, hippo, giraffe, zebra and a variety of antelope, blue monkey and black and white colobus monkey, leopard and hyena |
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| Gombe Stream National Park |
Gombe is the smallest of Tanzania's national parks, but thanks to Dr. Jane Goodall, one of the best known. Since 1960, Goodall and colleagues have lived among the Gombe chimpanzees, making significant contributions to the study of primates. Travel to the Park is by water only from Ujiji or Kigoma.
The forests are alive with the famous chimpanzee, red colobus and red-tail and blue monkeys. You can also spot bushbuck and bushpig and grey duiker. The lake shore is home to the pied and giant kingfishers, the crowned eagle, the African broadbill, Ross's turaco and the trumpeter hornbill. |
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| Katavi National Park |
Katavi National Park lies south of the Mahale Mountains on a high flood plain surrounding Lake Katavi. It is one of the most difficult Parks to reach and is strictly for those of an adventurous spirit, but it has excellent game viewing with a real wilderness atmosphere. July to October are the best months to visit the Park.
The water of the Park shelters crocodile, hippo and large flocks of pelicans. The diverse woodland, acacia bush, lakes and swamps have attracted over 400 species of birds. Leopard, lion, elephant, eland, roan and sable antelopes, southern reedbuck and topi inhabit the short grasses and thickets. Kitavi is also home to one of the largest herds of buffalo, with as many as 1,600 animals. |
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| Mahale Mountains Park |
Mahale Mountains, like Gombe, are home to some of the last remaining wild chimpanzees in Africa. The Park is reached by boat or plane, both of which are available for charter. May to October is the best time to visit. There are no roads and all game viewing is done on foot.
Mahale is a unique ecological zone with lowland forest, moist and dry savannah, miombo and open woodlands. Animals range from elephant, buffalo, leopard and primates to roan and sable antelopes, giraffe, kudu, eland, leopard and lion. |
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| Lake Manyara National Park |
Hemingway describes Lake Manyara National Park's magnificent hunting country in "The Green Hills of Africa". Mahogany, sausage tree and croton are alive with blue monkeys and vervets. Elephants feed off fallen fruit while bushbuck, waterbuck, baboons, aardvark, civet, the shy pangolin and leopard as well as the black rhino, all make their home in the forest.
Manyara is sanctuary to elusive buffalo and hippo, giraffe, impala, zebra and the famous residents - tree climbing lions. Lake Manyara itself is a magnet for birdlife and a kaleidoscope of different species can be found around its shores, including huge flocks of flamingoes. The park is ideal for a day trip. A four-wheel drive is recommended during the rains. The dry season is from June to September and January to February |
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| Mikumi National Park |
Mikumi, to the north of the Selous, is only 283 km away from dar-Es-Salaam. The Park was established to protect the environment and resident animals and is also an important educational centre for students of ecology and conservation. The Mikumi flood plain is the main feature of the Park along with the bordering mountain ranges.
Animals commonly found here include lion, eland, hartebeest, buffalo, wildebeest, giraffe, zebra, hippo and elephant. The Mikumi elephants are mainly grazers and do not cause tree damage. Lions roam the Mikumi plains and will take refuge in the branches of trees. Wild dogs can be seen in packs here.
Mikumi's vegetation includes woodland, swamp and grassland with two water holes, Mkata and Chamgore. Apart from the saddle-bill stork, hammerkop and malachite kingfisher, you will also find monitor lizard and a deadly python inhabiting the pools. |
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| Ngorongoro Conservation Area |
The Ngorongoro Conservation Area is a huge area containing active volcanoes, mountains, archeological sites, rolling plains, forests, lakes, dunes and of course, Ngorongoro Crater and Olduvai Gorge.
The views at the rim of Ngorongoro Crater are sensational. On the crater floor, grassland blends into swamps, lakes, rivers, woodland and mountains - all a heaven for wildlife, including the densest predator population in Africa. The crater is home to up to 25,000 large mammals, mainly grazers - gazelle, buffalo, eland, hartebeest and warthog. You will not find giraffe as there is not much to eat at tree level, or topi, because the competition with wildebeest is too fierce, nor will you find impala. The crater elephants are strangely, mainly bulls.
There are a small number of black rhinos here too. The birdlife is largely seasonal and is also affected by the ratio of soda to fresh water in Lake Magadi on the crater floor.
In the northern, remote part of the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, you will find Olmoti and Empakaai Craters, Lake Natron and Oldoinyo Lengai, Mountain of God, as named by the Maasai. Lake Natron is the only known breeding ground for East Africa's flamingoes.
The ruins of a terraced stone city and complex irrigation system lie on the eastern side of Empakaai - the Engakura Ruins. Their origins are a mystery as there is no tradition of stone building in this part of Africa.
Olduvai Gorge , more accurately called Oldupai after the wild sisal in the area, is the site of some of the most important fossil hominid finds of all time - "Nutcracker Man" or Australopithecus boisei who lived 1.75 million years ago - by Leaky
There is a small informative museum located at the visitor center. The gorge is a treasure trove of archeological sites filled with fossils, settlement remains and stone artifacts. Lecture tours are offered. |
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| Ruaha National Park |
The Kisigio and Rungwa River Game Reserves and Ruaha National Park total a protected area of 25,600 sq. kilometers. Ruaha is Tanzania's second largest national park and one of the wildest. Crocodiles, hippos and clawless otters soak and play in the water and on the banks of the great Ruaha River. Reedbuck, waterbuck and buffalo drink, ever watchful for lion, leopard, jackal, spotted hyena and hunting dog.
The grassland borders of the River are home to greater and lesser kudu, a large elephant population, eland, impala, Grant's gazelle, dik-dik, zebra, warthog, mongoose, wild cat, porcupine and the shy civet.
There are plenty of Eurasian migrant birds on their outward and return journeys as well as resident kingfishers, plovers, hornbills, green wood hoopoes, bee-eaters, sunbirds and egrets. The best months to go are between July and November when the animals are concentrated around shrinking water holes. |
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| The Selous Game Reserve |
Tanzania is home to one of the single largest remaining elephant populations in the world. Most of these elephants are found in the remote and wildly beautiful Selous Game Reserve, a World Heritage Site.
The name derives from hunter-explorer Frederick Courtenay Selous, a keen naturalist and conservationist as well as a hunter. He was killed in the First World War in the Beho Beho region of the Reserve. Larger than Switzerland in size, the Reserve is the largest in Africa and is second only to the Serengeti in its concentration of wildlife. The Reserve has a varied terrain of rolling savannah woodland, grassland plains and rocky outcrops. Buffalo, crocodile, hippo and wild dog can also be seen here.
The Reserve can be reached from Dar-Es-Salam by road, air charter, and rail (Tazara) and the best time to go is in the cool season between the end of June and the end of October. Walking safaris can be taken from the camps in the Reserve, in the company of an armed guard. |
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| Serengeti National Park |
The Serengeti is on of the world's last great wildlife refuges. This vast area of land supports the greatest remaining concentration of plain game in Africa, on a scale unparalleled anywhere else in the world. The name comes from the Maasai 'Siringet', meaning endless plains. Equal in size to Northern Ireland, the Park contains an estimated three million large animals, most of which take part in a seasonal migration that is one of nature's wonders.
The annual migration of more than 1.5 million wildebeests as well as hundreds of thousands of zebras and gazelles is triggered by the rains. The wet season starts in November and lasts until about May. Generally the herds congregate and move out at the end of May. Their movement is a continual search for grass and water - the moving mass of animals requiring over 4,000 tons of grass each day.
The exodus coincides with the breeding season which causes fights among the males. As the dry season sets in the herds drift out of the West, one group to the North, the other north-east heading for the permanent waters of the northern rivers and the Mara. The immigration instinct is so strong that animals die in the rivers as they dive from the banks into the raging waters, to be dispatched by crocodiles.
The survivors concentrate in Kenya's Maasai Mara National reserve until the grazing there is exhausted, when they turn south along the eastern and final stage of the migration route. Before the main exodus, the herds are a spectacular sight, massed in huge numbers with the weak and crippled at the tail end of the procession, followed by the patient, vigilent predators.
The vegetation in the Serengeti ranges from the short and long grass plains in the south, to the acacia savannah in the centre and the wooded grassland concentrated around tributaries of the Grumeti and Mara rivers. The western corridor is a region of wooded highland and extensive plains reaching to the edge of Lake Victoria.
The Seronera Valley in the Serengeti is famous for the abundance lion and leopard that can usually be seen quite easily. The adult male lions of the Serengeti have characteristic black manes. |
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| Tarangire National Park |
The permanent water supply of the Park means that during the summer, the animal population here rivals that of the Serengeti with wildebeest, zebra, eland, elephant, hartebeest, buffalo, gerenuk, fringe eared oryx and flocks of birds of many different species. Prime game viewing months are between September and December. |
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| Gombe Stream National Park |
The park is on Lake Tanganyika, near the Burundi border . Gombe was created to protect 1,000's of chimpanzees and is set in the stunning Mahale mountains. It is reknowned for fantastic sunsets over Lake Tanganyika and Eastern Zaire which makes it an essential stop for the keen photographer. The habitat combines rain forest, grasslands, alpine bamboo and woodland. The best time to visit is between May and October.
Activites and Special Interests
Climbing; snorkelling to observe the 90 species of cichlid and other fish in Lake Tanganyika; photography; walking safaris.
Wildlife
50 species of animal have been noted in the park predominantly from the monkey family: chimpanzees, yellow baboon, Sykes monkeys, red tailed, savannah, colobus monkeys (both red and black & white) and 2 species of galago. |
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| Mount Kilimanjaro |
The snow-covered splendor of the highest mountain in Africa is visible on a clear day from more than 250 kms away. Kilimanjaro rises from the vast open plains. First mentioned by Ptolemeus (a 2nd Century Greek philosopher and geographer), the largest mountain in Africa and highest free standing mountain in the world, has proved a magnet to climbers, naturalists, travelers and explorers over the centuries.
Only three degrees from the equator, the Victorians believed Kilimanjaro's snow to be a flight of fancy for many years. Mount Kilimanjaro is the highest mountain in Africa and stands at 5,895 meters, three degrees south of the equator. The mountain, a dormant volcano, has two peaks - Kibo and Mawezi, which are surrounded by dense forests full of dazzling variety of flora and fauna.
Accommodations:
Kibo Hotel (at base)
Marangu Hotel
Mountain Inn
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| Udzungwa Mountains National Park |
Udzungwa is one of Tanzania's largest park's but accessibility is severely limited-game drives are not possible, and therefore only trekking expeditions can be organized into the wilderness.
The park hosts six species of primate, two of them are of endemic forms - the Red Colobus Monkey and the Sanje Crested Mangabey, discovered in 1979. The large resident populations of Elephant, Buffalo, Lion, Leopard, Wild Dog and Sable Antelope reside primarily on the side of the mountain range which is presently inaccessible.
Other attractions of this park include the spectacular mountain scenery with rain forest, wooded grasslands, rock faces, rivers and waterfalls; the falls on the Sanje River which drops some 170 m through the forest and into the valley below; and the mountain plateau with views of over 100 km, much of it across a mosaic of mountain forest and grassland. |
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The Great Migration |
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Maasai Mara Safaris |
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World Class Hotels |
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Top Africa Accommodations |
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| Governors' Camp, Mara Sopa Lodge |
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