Arusha National Park Tour
The Arusha National Park is one of the park in Northern Tanzania where you may experience an amazing walking safari, either short walking safari or long walking safari with an armed guide ranger. Safari in Arusha National Park means a light trekking with a ranger. You will walk in the tropical forest and watch animals outside the car. The most amazing thing is that you will be able to walk up to the crater of Meru (the second highest peak of Tanzania and the fifth highest peak of Africa) which is located right in the park. This is a fantastic experience, worth adding to your Tanzanian adventures!
Day 1: Arusha to Arusha National Park
We will commence our Wildlife Safari proper with a morning transfer that should take less than an hour, from your accommodation, nestled in the lush foothills of Mount Meru, a dormant stratovolcano, which at 4565 metres is the fifth highest mountain in Africa. Arusha National Park surrounds and includes Mount Meru, so it is a very varied park, albeit a small one by Tanzania standards. Much of it is forested and we will pay close attention to this forest as much of the safari will take us through more open savanna habitats. There are two special mammals, both antelopes, too look for here. One is tiny and one very small, both inhabit these moist and often dense forests.
We will explore a variety of the biotopes protected within this montane park so that our first full day should introduce us to the exceptional biodiversity to be found in Equatorial East Africa. There are numerous small lakes and scattered ponds within the park. Some of these are distinctly brackish with birds to match. Waterbird species range from those that are cryptic and shy, such as the White-backed Duck and African Water Rail, to the brilliantly coloured and seemingly ostentatious Greater and Lesser Flamingos, noisy Black-winged Stilt, graceful Pied Avocets and the utterly splendid Grey Crowned Crane.
We will see our first African big game today. Plains Zebra, Common Waterbuck, Bushbuck, African Buffalo, Common Warthog and of course the uniquely fantastic Giraffe, a species for which Arusha National Park is renowned. Perched amongst, around, or even on top of the beasts we will notice their avian commensals. Birds who in myriad ways depend for their livelihood upon the everyday activities of the great browsers and grazers – the East African mega fauna with which Tanzania is so rightly famous. There are oxpeckers, vibrantly coloured starlings, brilliant ‘sunshine-filled’ weavers, dun coloured pipits and yellow wagtails, in the long grass are tiny Estrildid waxbills as well as many bigger birds: storks, herons, egrets, ibises, lapwings and so forth. Each day we endeavour to get out of the customized, long wheelbase Toyota land cruiser vehicles (with pop-up roofs) as often as possible. In the national parks of Tanzania walking is strictly controlled so we shall make full use of the vicinity of the entrance gates, the picnic sites, restroom areas, museums and interpretive centres, the hotel grounds, camps, lodges and some of the remote ranger posts in order to undertake a variety of mini bird walks. It is remarkable and, perhaps to many, a little surprising that such locations provide some of the most interesting observations. Humans have always been a part of nature in tropical East Africa and even today, in the vast protected areas, one tends to find a greater variety of bird species around those places where human activity is disturbing the landscape. Disturbing the habitat structurally, yet not in any serious way threatening the wildlife. As an example the forest clearing around a tiny museum in the middle of Arusha National Park can offer opportunities to find some rare birds that are not easily found elsewhere. After this Arusha National Park day trip you will be returned back to Arusha town.
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