Ancient hominid footprints
at Olduvai Gorge

Lake Manyara National Park and Olduvai Gorge

Lake Manyara is to the south east of Ngorongoro and whilst the national park is small and can easily be seen in a day, it is densely packed. Elephant, zebra and wildebeest graze on the grassy shores of the lake which is perfect hunting ground for lion and the dense acacia woodlands are one of the best places to sight leopard.

The park is also a birder's paradise with more than 400 species present including waterfowl and migrants and the flamingos who reside in the shallow alkaline lake that give the park its name.

Between the Serengeti and Ngorongoro Crater is Olduvai Gorge or Oldupai to give it the correct Maasai name. The gorge is a steep sided ravine in the Great Rift Valley and is commonly referred to as “The Cradle of Mankind” due to the wealth of prehistoric archaeological finds that have been made here.

The site has been of fundamental importance in understanding human evolution as it was here in 1978 that archaeologist Mary Leakey discovered footprints of ancient hominids dating back some 3.6 million years.

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