Arusha National Park

It attracts day trippers from Arusha on northern circuit safaris. Mt. Meru’s slopes, summit, and ash cone, the Momela Lakes, Ngurdoto Crater, and lush highland forests cover the small national park. Visitors stop to watch rare Colubus monkeys play in the canopy while game viewing around the Momela Lakes.

Arusha National Park visitors enjoy climbing Mt. Meru or hiking its lower trails. The three-day climb to the crater’s summit is quieter and more difficult than Mount Kilimanjaro. Visitors who don’t want to climb can hike to rivers and waterfalls on the lower slopes. Arusha National Park offers colobus monkeys, ancient fig tree forests, and crystal-clear mountain streams.
Arusha National Park, the closest national park to northern Tanzania’s safari capital, is a multi-faceted jewel that safari goers often overlook despite it offering the chance to explore a beguiling diversity of habitats in a few hours.

The entrance gate leads into a shadowy montane forest with inquisitive blue monkeys, colourful turacos, and trogons, and is the only place on the northern safari circuit where the acrobatic black-and-white colobus monkey can be seen. Ngurdoto Crater’s steep rocky cliffs enclose a wide marshy floor with buffalo and warthog herds in the forest.
Further north, grassy hills surround the tranquil Momela Lakes, each a different colour. Flamingos fill the shallows. Waterfowl and shaggy waterbucks with large, lyre-shaped horns live in the lakes. Giraffes glide across grassy hills between grazing zebra herds, while pairs of wide-eyed dik-dik dart into scrubby bushes like overgrown hares on spindly legs.

Leopards and spotted hyenas roam Arusha National Park in the morning and afternoon, but elephants and lions are rare. At dusk and dawn, the eastern horizon’s cloud cover may lift, revealing Kilimanjaro’s snow-capped peaks 50 kilometers (30 miles) away. The park’s horizon is dominated by Kilimanjaro’s unassuming cousin, Mount Meru, Africa’s fifth-highest mountain at 4,566 meters (14,990 feet). Meru’s national park-protected peaks and eastern foot slopes offer stunning views of its famous neighbour and make for a rewarding hike.

The ascent of Meru begins in a wooded savannah with buffaloes and giraffes, then enters forests of red-hot pokers and Spanish moss before reaching open heath with giant lobelias. As delicate-hoofed klipspringers mark the hike, everlasting flowers cling to the alpine desert. Kilimanjaro glows at sunrise on its rocky summit.