Gombe Stream and Mahale Mountains national parks sit on the eastern shore of Lake Tanganyika, in Tanzania’s far west. Steep forested valleys run down to clear water and narrow beaches, and both parks are home to habituated communities of wild chimpanzees.
Gombe is small and famous: this is where Dr Jane Goodall began her chimpanzee research in 1960. Mahale, further south, is larger, wilder and reached only by boat or light aircraft, with misty mountains rising behind the lake shore.
Chimpanzee trekking is the reason to come, but the forests also hold red colobus, red-tailed and blue monkeys, and good forest and lake birding. Most visitors combine a few days here with a northern safari or a trip to Ruaha.
