Lakes in the mountain

Mt Meru as seen from Lake Duluti Serena near Arusha National Park. PHOTO | RUPI MANGAT

What you need to know:

  • Giraffes and zebra wander around browsing. A reedbuck stares though the thick vines and baboons dart across the road.
  • The smaller lake is laced with the pink of flamingos, and it’s a striking colour surrounded by the dry crust of the lake shore.
  • I could never have imagined elephants so close to the city but here they are – foraging.

Arusha is a fascinating city on the foothills of Mt Meru, which is Africa’s fifth highest mountain (14,968 ft).

It is a dormant volcano and a stunning backdrop to the city. It is also a great mountain to explore.

After lunch at Lake Duluti Serena by the cusp of the lake from which the hotel takes its name, my guide John Malley and I stroll down to the water.

It’s a lake in a crater by the towering peak of Mount Meru. A cloud sits on the tip of it like a cap. There are waders all around – squacco herons, cormorants, Egyptian geese, and on the ground, a monitor lizard swimming away.

It’s a refreshing walk through the forest of sky-high trees of Cordia Africana and figs. As the sun settles, long ribbons of white egrets fly over the lake to settle on the trees for the night.

And in the morning after breakfast, another guide, Felix Ogembo, suggests a morning game drive into Arusha National Park since it’s a few minutes’ drive away.

It’s an uphill road into the mountain park where a life-size statue of an elephant guards the gate. The park is lush. Waterbuck amble to the swamp as the morning mist clears.

Bushbuck

A bushbuck at Arusha National Park in Tanzania. 

Photo credit: Courtesy

LACED WITH FLAMINGOS

Giraffes and zebra wander around browsing. A reedbuck stares though the thick vines and baboons dart across the road. It’s a real Eden. “We had black rhinos here until the 1970s,” says Zacharia Mbuya, the driver-guide from Routes Kilimanjaro, “but they were hunted out by poachers.”

The higher we climb, the cooler it gets. And in the lush green, little lakes emerge – the famous Momella lakes that are fed by underground springs. There are six of them – some that are as old as the last eruption of the mountains.

The smaller lake is laced with the pink of flamingos, and it’s a striking colour surrounded by the dry crust of the lake shore. Past the lakes, we’re in a highland forest with a troop of colobus monkeys foraging, their white-tipped tails hanging.

As they vanish deeper into the forest we make our way back to the lodge and suddenly without any warning, there’s a herd of four male elephants by the road. I could never have imagined elephants so close to the city but here they are – foraging.

Elephant statue at entrance of Arusha National Park. PHOTO | RUPI MANGAT

Two younger males playfully push each other around, rubbing their heads against each other and twining their trunks. And then a few feet from us they cross the road.

“Arusha National Park forms one ecosystem with Amboseli National Park in Kenya and Kilimanjaro National Park,” says Mbuya, “so they migrate between the three parks. At one time, they had become rare in Arusha National Park but our president (John Pombe Magafuli) has really cracked down on poachers and so we’re seeing more of them here.”

www.rupitheafricantrotter.wordpress.com