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Arusha
National Park
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This park
has three distinct zones: Ngurdoto Crater (often
called the 'mini-Ngorongoro'); the shallow alkaline
Momella Lakes fed by underground streams (upon which
rest thousands of lesser and greater flamingoes, and
many migrant birds can be seen between May and
October); and the densely forested slopes of Mount
Meru (one of the rewarding mountains to climb in
Africa and where, among other animal species, live
blue monkeys and beautiful black and white colobus
monkeys). Other attractions in the park include the
elephant, giraffe, buffalo, zebra, hippo, various
antelopes, leopard and hyena. The park is 21 km from
Arusha on the main Arusha to Moshi road. A network
of gravel roads and tracks navigable by two
wheel-drive vehicle link the park's main features
and viewing points. Nevertheless, a few roads
require 4WD vehicles. |
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Gombe
Stream National Park
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Located a
few kilometers north of Kigoma , on the western part
of Tanzania, is the smallest but one of the best
known of Tanzania's National Park’s made famous for
its primates and the research center of world
renowned Dr. Jane Goodall. Gombe Stream consists of
a narrow mountainous strip of country stretching
along the eastern shore of Lake Tanganyika and
running inland about 5 km to the peaks of the
mountain range forming the rift escarpment. The
thick gallery forests of the valley and lower
slopes, and the open deciduous woodland on the upper
slopes. are the few places where chimpanzees can
still be found in their natural habitat. Since 1960,
Dr. Jane Goodall and colleagues have studied the
primates here. Other primates which may be seen in
the park include: Baboon, Red Colobus Monkey, and
Blue Monkey. and the birdlife include the African
and the trumpeter hornbills, Ross's turaco, pied and
giant kingfishers, and the crowned eagle. Access to
the park is only by water vessel from either Kigoma
or Ujiji.
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Katavi
National Park
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This remote and difficult park to reach
(strictly recommended for those of an
adventurous spirit) lies on a high flood
plain surrounding Lake Kitavi, to the south
of the Mahale Mountains. The main vegetation
found here is the Miombo woodland. It has a
wide variety of wildlife (crocodile, hippo,
leopard, lion, roan and sable antelopes,
southern reedbuck, topi, eland, elephant,
and one of the largest herds of buffalo,
with as many as 1,600 animals) and offers
excellent game viewing with a real
wilderness atmosphere. The diverse woodland,
acacia bush, lakes and swamps have attracted
over 400 species of birds, including large
flocks of pelicans. Other attractions are
Lakes Katavi and Chada, which are joined by
the River Katuma. The best months to visit
are July to October. |
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Lake
Manyara National Park
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This relatively small park is divided into
five distinct vegetation zones: ground-water
forest, marshland and reed beds, open
grasslands and acacia woodland. In a single
day, a visitor may see elephant, buffalo,
zebra, hippo and the curious lions which
have a habit of resting in trees. Sheltering
under the massive escarpment of the Great
Rift Valley, and covering an area of 325 sq.
km, this park is a flash of green amid an
otherwise parched landscape. A line of
springs support the lush vegetation of a
groundwater forest, where blue monkeys,
baboons and the curious-looking
silvery-cheeked hornbill live, among the
more than 350 bird species, the most profuse
being the flamingo. |
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Lake Nyasa
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Also known as Lake Malawi, Lake Nyasa is the
most southerly of the Rift Valley lakes and
is also, biologically, the most diverse. For
example, the lake contains 30 per cent of
the world's cichild species - colorful fish
easily observed in the clear water.
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Lake Tanganyika
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The lake is the longest fresh water lake in
the world (677km), and the second deepest
(1433m), with over 250 species of fish. Its
great age, isolation and stability have made
it a marvelous evolutionary storehouse.
Nearly all of the lake's cichlids are unique
as are some species of crabs, mollusks and
crustaceans. All these make it a truly
remarkable biological habitat. |
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Lake Victoria
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Africa's largest and the world's second
largest freshwater lake, this lake supports
fishing communities along its shores as well
as commercial operations. |
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Mahale Mountains National Park
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Located at Ujiji on the shores of Lake
Tanganyika, where Stanley is reputed to have
met Livingstone and given the famous
greeting "Dr. Livingstone, I presume". The
Mahale Mountains, like Gombe, are one of the
last natural home to chimpanzees and are
rich in birdlife. The park is a unique
ecological zone with lowland forest, Miombo
and open woodlands, moist and dry Savannah
grasslands. Wildlife in the park includes
primates, kudu, eland, roan and sable
antelopes, giraffe, buffalo, elephant, lion
and leopard. Access is by boat or plane,
both of which are available for charter.
There are no roads and all game viewing is
done on foot. It is virtually the only
Tanzanian park where you can walk around.
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Mikumi National Park
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Located astride the main Dar to Mbeya
highway, to the north of Selous Game Reserve
and only 283 km from Dar-es-Salaam, the park
is an important educational center for
students of ecology and conservation, having
been established to protect the environment
and resident animals. The Mikumi flood plain
is the main feature of the park along with
the bordering mountain ranges. It has a
landing strip and is home to, among others,
the buffalo, zebra, giraffe, lion, wild
dogs, python, monitor lizard, hartebeest,
wildebeest, elephant hippo, impala, warthog,
eland and antelope. Birds include the
hammerkop, saddle-bill stork, and the
malachite kingfisher. The vegetation is made
up of woodland, grassland and swamp. There
are two water holes, Mkata and Chamgore.
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Mount
Kilimanjaro
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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. |
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Ngorongoro Crater / Ngorongoro Conservation Area
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This vast
protected area stretches from Lake Natron (the
breeding ground for East Africa's flamingos) in the
northeast, to Lake Enyasi in the south, and Lake
Manyara to the east. Eight million years ago, the
Ngorongoro Crater was an active volcano but its cone
collapsed, forming the crater that is 610 meters
deep, 20 kilometers in diameter, and covers an area
of 311 sq. km. Spectacular as it is, the crater
accounts for just a tenth of the Ngorongoro
Conservation Area. The crater is home to many
species of wild game and birds. With the exception
of impala and topi (due to fierce competition with
the wildebeest) and the giraffe (because there is
not much to eat at tree level), almost every species
of African plains mammal lives in the crater,
including the endangered black rhino, and the
densest population of predators in Africa. A strange
thing is that the crater elephants are mainly bulls.
The birdlife, which includes the flamingo, is mainly
seasonal, and is also affected by the ratio of soda
to fresh water in Lake Magadi on the crater floor.
Views from the rim of the crater are sensational. On
the crater floor, grassland blends into swamps,
lakes, rivers, woodland and mountains. You can
descend to the floor of the crater in a four-wheel
drive vehicle. Only 4WD vehicles are allowed into
the crater and game rangers are compulsory for all.
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Olduvai Gorge
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Olduvai, more accurately called Oldupai
after the wild sisal in the area, is
situated near the Ngorongoro Crater and is
the site of some of the most important finds
of early hominid fossils of all time (made
famous by the work of the Leakey family) -
The "Nutcracker Man" or Australophithecus
boisei who lived 1.8 million years ago.
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
artefacts. Lecture tours are offered.
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Ruaha National Park
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At 13,000 sq. km, it is the second largest
Tanzanian park and the world's largest
elephant sanctuary. The park represents a
transition zone where eastern and southern
African species of fauna and flora overlap.
It is the northernmost example of Miombo
woodland, common in central Africa, and the
most southerly protected area in which
Grant's gazelle, lesser kudu and striped
hyena are found. To be able to see both
greater and lesser kudu and roan and sable
antelope in the same park is one of the
special attractions of Ruaha. In the dry
season, the river is an excellent place for
observing large numbers of game including
lions, leopards, hunting dogs, giraffe,
waterbuck, eland and warthogs. Thousands of
birds flock to Ruaha on their annual
migration from Europe to Asia, and 465 bird
species have been sighted in the park. The
park's residents include kingfishers,
plovers, hornbills, green wood hoopoes,
bee-eaters, sunbirds and egrets.
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Selous Game Reserve
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The pristine reserve, a World Heritage Site
since 1982, comprises an area of 55,000 sq.
km, covering about six per cent of
Tanzania's land surface. Larger than
Switzerland, it is the world's largest game
reserve and second only to the Serengeti in
its concentration of wildlife. It is also
the sanctuary of the biggest elephant herd
in the world, about 32,000 elephants live in
the reserve - 70 per cent of those in
Tanzania. The reserve is difficult to
describe without the use of superlatives.
Named after British hunter and writer
Frederick Courteney Selous who was killed
during the First World War in the Beho Beho
region (of the reserve), the reserve is part
of the 75,000 square kilometer Selous
ecosystem, which includes Mikumi National
Park, the Kilombero Game Controlled Areas .
Nature experiences include a boat safari on
the mighty Rufiji, walk on the wild side and
ornithology (over 350 species). |
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Serengeti National Park
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Covering an area of 14,763 square
kilometers, equal in size to Northern
Ireland, the world famous Serengeti National
Park is Tanzania's oldest park, and one of
the world's last great wildlife refuges. It
is contiguous with Kenya's Masai Mara Game
Reserve and stretches as far as Lake
Victoria to the West. Its name comes from
the Masai word Siringet, meaning 'endless
plains'. The Serengeti ecosystem supports
the greatest remaining concentration of
plains game in Africa, including more than
three million large mammals. It is the
sanctuary of an estimated four million
different animals and birds. The animals
roam the park freely and in the spectacular
migrations, huge herds of wild animals move
to other areas of the park in search of
greener grazing grounds (requiring over
4,000 tons of grass each day) and water.
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Tarangire National Park
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The park's permanent water supply ensures a
huge and varied animal population,
especially during the dry season when it
rivals that of the Serengeti. The animals
include large herds of elephants, rhino,
buffalo, zebra, lesser and greater kudu,
eland, wildebeest, hartebeest, Gerenuk,
impala and fringe-eared oryx. This
attractive park, with its statuesque baobab
trees, is the main refuge for wildlife from
the surrounding part of the Great Rift
Valley during the dry season. It is also an
excellent place for bird watching. The best
bird watching months are October to May.
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Udzungwa Mountains National Park
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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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Zanzibar Island ("Unguja")
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Zanzibar is located
about 35 kilometers off the coast of Tanzania. It comprises the
1,464 square kilometer main island of Unguja (also known as Zanzibar);
the island of Pemba (868 - square kilometers), which is located
about 50 kilometers north of Unguja and famed for its deep-sea
fishing and scuba-diving; and a number of smaller islands. Set
as a jewel in the Indian Ocean just off the coast of Tanzania,
Zanzibar has evoked the magic of "A Thousand and One Nights"
for over two centuries. This exotic spice island combines mesmerizing
beauty with the outstanding hospitality of its colorful people.
The generally laid-back pace of this island has ensured that its
rich tradition of spice trading is still evident, as is the historical
structures, ancient ruins and crumbled palaces of past Sultans.
Kiswahili is the main language and more than 90 percent of the
population is Muslim. Visitors are advised to dress modestly in
public places. [IPS]
Zanzibar is warm almost all the year round with heavy rains from
March to May and lesser rains during October and November. February
is the hottest month with a maximum average temperature of 29
degrees Celsius, while in August the temperature falls to 21 degrees
Celsius.
The city of Zanzibar consists of two distinct areas - Stone Town
and Ngambo. In Stone Town shadows play with shafts of sunlight.
Here and there, one will catch a glimpse of ornate latticework
on a balcony or admire the intricacy of a carved door in sun warmed
wood. A narrow staircase winds its way into a cool interior, children's
voices echo in a hidden courtyard, old men chat next to the colored,
crumbling stone walls and tantalizing scents of spices wreathe
doorways and dark corners. A walk through the narrow, twisting
streets of stone town plunges you into the past. The houses are
over 150 years old and are constructed from the island's coral
stone. Built by Arab and Indian merchants, in the 19th century,
this is the only functioning historical city in East Africa.
A spice tour is a specialty of Zanzibar and involves a walk in
the western and central regions of the island through plantations,
private gardens and forests. There are more than 50 different
spices and fruit - cinnamon, pepper, ginger, tamarind, coffee,
ylang-ylang, coco, and sugarcane. Coconuts are another main produce
of the archipelago.
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