Mbeya - Heart of the South

Mbeya is located between the Mbeya and Poroto mountain ranges, at the foot of the soaring Loleza Peak. Lake Ngozi, a massive crater lake surrounded by deep woodland rich in birdlife, is located on the outskirts of town. Kitulo Plateau National Park, located southeast of the city, is well-known for its vibrant wildflowers. Matema Beach, a vacation town on the shores of the enormous, fish-filled Lake Nyasa, located further south.

Kitulo Plateau:

Locals call the Kitulo Plateau Bustani ya Mungu – The Garden of God – while botanists call it the Serengeti of Flowers, home to ‘one of the world's great floral spectacles. Kitulo is a remarkable Botanical Wonder, with 350 kinds of vascular plants, including 45 varieties of terrestrial orchids, that erupt into a riotous wildflower show of amazing scale and diversity during the main wet season, which runs from late November to April.

The plateau is 44 kilometers from Mbeya. Hike one of the routes across the breathtakingly gorgeous rolling plains, or tackle a hill climb in the shadow of the Kipengere, Poroto, and Livingstone mountains. The greatest time to visit is between October and April, when the flowers are in bloom.Kitulo's well-watered volcanic soils support Tanzania's largest and most important Montane grassland community, which is perched at roughly 2,600 metres (8,500 ft) between the steep peaks of the Kipengere, Poroto, and Livingstone Mountains.

Kitulo is well recognized for its floral significance – not only the presence of a plethora of orchids, but also the gorgeous yellow-orange red-hot poker and a variety of aloes, proteas, geraniums, enormous lobelias, lilies, and aster daisies, of which more than 30 species are native to southern Tanzania.A diverse range of big game is rarely represented, with only a few hardy mountain reedbuck and eland roaming the wide grassland.

Kitulo, a botanist and hiker's paradise, is also a birdwatcher's dream. There lives Tanzania's only population of the uncommon Denham's bustard, as well as a breeding colony of the endangered blue swallow and range-restricted species such as Mountain marsh widow, Njombe cisticola, and Kipengere seedeater. Furthermore, endemic species of butterfly, chameleon, lizard, and frog add to God's Garden's biological diversity.

Lake Ngosi is a stunning crater lake in Tanzania's Southern Highlands.

Ngosi Lake, Africa's second largest crater lake, is the most popular tourist destination in Rungwe region, attracting hundreds of people each year.

The lake is around 38 kilometers south of Mbeya city, in the Tukuyu Township. It's on the Uporoto Mountains' Ngosi peak, which is part of the Eastern Arc mountains.It is situated at a height of 2,600 meters above sea level in the deep, natural forest of the Uporoto nature reserve, which covers an area of 9,332 hectares. It measures 2.5 kilometers in length, 1.5 kilometers in breadth, and is 75 meters deep.To get to the lake, travel to the edge of the Uporoto Forest Reserve, which is located in the foothills of the Uporoto mountain. It can take up to two hours to hike from the foothill to the ridge, which is 200 meters below the lake.

It's a verdant, glistening lake surrounded by the extinct Ngosi Volcano's collapsed crater. The highest point in the Uporoto Ridge Forest Reserve is the summit. An endemic three-horned chameleon can be found in the woodland (Chameleon fuelleborni).

This magnificent caldera lake goes back to the Neocene epoch. The water is slightly brackish, has some fish, and may reach a depth of 75 meters. For the locals, the lake holds spiritual significance.

Climbers who want to see this beautiful lake can do so from the top of the jagged crater rim, where the lake gleams below with an amazing sense of tranquility, and the terrain beyond is pocked with the points of lesser volcanic peaks.

Walking to the rim takes you past upland grasslands and tropical woodlands, where families of Colobus monkeys chatter and play, and a swarm of birds seek shelter.