Lake Manyara National Park is a tiny green belt of woodland tucked beneath the majesty of the rift valley wall, surrounded on one side by the towering 600m high red and brown cliffs of the escarpment and on the other by the white-hot shores of an old soda lake. The streams running out of the escarpment base and waterfalls cascading over the cliffs nourish a plethora of fauna in this wedge of remarkably diverse vegetation. In the heat of the day, the park’s famous tree-climbing lions lie languidly among the branches of the Acacia woodland. The country’s densest herds of buffalo and elephant can be seen feeding in the undergrowth or napping in dry riverbeds.