Momella Lakes

Lakes that are different colours for a reason

The Momella lakes are a chain of shallow lakes in the north-eastern part of Arusha National Park, below the eastern flank of Mount Meru. TANAPA describes them as originating from volcanic activity and as being largely fed by underground streams, and gives the reason they look the way they do: because their mineral content differs, they support different types of algae, and so they read as genuinely different colours from one another.

That is the thing to look at here, and it is more interesting than a photograph makes it seem, because the lakes sit close enough together that the difference is visible from a single vantage point on the game-viewing track that winds around them.

What is on and around them

Waterbirds, primarily. Lesser and greater flamingo are both seen here, and the shallow alkaline water is the reason. Flamingo numbers on lakes of this kind move with water level rather than with a calendar, so this is a likelihood rather than a fixture — the flamingo watching guide explains what governs it. The park’s published bird total is inconsistent between TANAPA’s own documents, running from over 400 on the website to over 450 in the general brochure, and the safe statement is more than four hundred.

From the water and the shore, TANAPA names hippopotamus, waterbuck, buffalo, giraffe and bushbuck, with occasional elephant emerging from the vegetation around the lake.

Lake Longil, elsewhere in the park, is a different proposition and the two are often confused: TANAPA describes Longil as the park’s only fresh water lake, holding tilapia, water birds and floating vegetation including papyrus and water lilies. The Momella lakes are alkaline; Longil is not.

Canoeing, which is unusual

The Momella lakes are one of the few places in a Tanzanian national park where visitors are allowed onto the water in a canoe. TANAPA states that the canoeing safari in Arusha National Park is conducted on the small Momella lakes, and describes it as giving access to aspects of nature that a game drive or a walking safari cannot reach — a closer view of hippopotamus, waterbuck and occasional elephant at the lake edge, and the water birds.

It needs arranging in advance. Arusha is named in TANAPA’s canoeing schedule alongside Lake Manyara and Nyerere; see canoe safaris.

The lakes are also on the walking network. TANAPA lists six nature trails in the park and requires that any walk be accompanied by an armed ranger and arranged at one of the two gates — a park-specific rule the authority publishes for Arusha and not as a blanket rule for its parks generally. See walking safaris.

Where they sit in a visit

Momella is the anchor of the northern half of the park and the reason the game-viewing circuit runs where it does. A half day covers the lake circuit and a viewpoint; a full day allows a canoe or a walk as well. The Momella gate is also the start of the Mount Meru climb and of the park’s mountain cycling trail, which runs from the gate via the Miriakamba cottages towards Big Meru.

Common questions