Udzungwa Mountains National Park, Tanzania

The landscape of the Park is beautiful and spectacular with miombo woodlands, tropical rainforest, mountain forest, and grassland and steppe.

The Park is situated at an area of 1,990 square kilometers and there is a vertical height range of 250–2,576 meters (the peak of Lohomero) which incorporates the Udzungwa Mountains part of the Eastern Arc Mountains.

The Park has the second largest biodiversity of a national park in Africa with over 400 bird species, 2500 plant species (25% of which are endemics) and 6 primate species of which five of them are endemic. The Iringa red colobus and Sanje crested mangabey are only found in the Udzungwa Mountains National Park.

Tourism in the Udzungwa Mountains national Park revolves around hiking and trekking as the park has no roads and is accessible only on foot. The hiking trails range in difficulty from the short one-hour Sonjo trek to the extremely challenging 6-day camping trek the Lumemo Trail.

The most common walk is the Sanje Waterfalls trail which takes approximately four hours to complete and allows the visitor access to the stunning 170 meters waterfall and includes swimming in the waterfall plunge pools as part of the activity.

However, accommodation for visitors within the park is only possible on a camping basis because currently there are no lodges within the park borders though within the nearby village of Mang’ula there are a couple of local guesthouses providing a budget option.