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Africa's best kept secret is
a country of stunning beauty,
a kaleidoscope of landscape,
wildlife and people. With an
area of 939,701 sq. km., Tanzania
is situated below the Equator
and is bordered by shimmering
lakes and the Indian Ocean,
from Mount Kilimanjaro in the
North to Mozambique in the South.
Its landscapes varies from the
green tropical 800 km of coastline,
with silver sand, coral reefs
and mangrove swamps, to the
beige semidesert of the central
plateau, the eternal snow of
the northern mountains and the
savannah of the largest and
best game reserves in the world.
What
first strikes the visitor to
Tanzania is its sheer physical
size and infinite variety. The
country embraces the green islands
of Pemba, Zanzibar and Mafia.
Over
a quarter of Tanzania is made
up of National Parks, game reserves,
and controlled areas. In the
North, the remarkable Serengeti
plains support over three million
animals; further east is Ngorongoro
Crater, an inequalable caldera
which reveals on its floor a
magic world teeming with animals;
nearby, Lake Manyara at the
foot of the Rift Valley is a
bird watchers paradise. Tanzania
has 53,000 sq. km. of inland
water. Lake Tanganyika is Africa´s
deepest and longest fresh water
lake. In the north-west, Lake
Victoria, the second largest
on earth, lies in a huge shallow
depression.
But
above all, at 5,895 m, there
is mighty Mount Kilimanjaro,
the highest mountain in Africa,
which rises majestically out
of the dusty bush of the northern
Masai Steppe. Its densely forested
sides give way to the blue glaciers
and unbelievably white snow
of its rounded peak.
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