Mahale Mountains National Park
Mahale Mountains, bordering Lake Tanganyika, are home to some of Africa’s last remaining wild chimpanzees: a population of roughly eight hundred, habituated to human visitors by a Japanese research project founded in the 1960s.
Mahale Mountains National Park
Mahale Mountains, bordering Lake Tanganyika, are home to some of Africa’s last remaining wild chimpanzees: a population of roughly eight hundred, habituated to human visitors by a Japanese research project founded in the 1960s. To get there you will travel by steamer from Kigoma and then on a local fishing boat.
Tracking the chimps of Mahale is a magical experience. The guide’s eyes pick out last night’s nests – shadowy clumps high in a gallery of trees crowding the sky. Scraps of half-eaten fruit and fresh dung become valuable clues, leading deeper into the forest. Butterflies flit in the dappled sunlight. Then suddenly you are in their midst: grooming each other’s glossy coats in concentrated huddles, squabbling noisily or bounding into the trees to swing effortlessly between the vines.
While chimpanzees are the star attraction, the slopes support a diverse forest fauna including easily observable troops of red colobus, red-tailed and blue monkeys and a kaleidoscopic array of colourful forest birds. The park is also home of an endemic race of Angola colobus monkey, spotted to the high grassy ridges chequered with alpine bamboo.
Safari Destinations & Games Drives