Gombe Stream National Park
Tanzania’s smallest national park is also one of its most famous, thanks to the pioneering chimpanzee research project initiated there by Jane Goodall in 1960 – now the world’s longest-running study of an individual wild animal population. Gombe Stream packs a fair altitudinal range in its 52 sq km, rising from the 773m shore of Lake Tanganyika to above 1,550m on the Rift Valley escarpment.
The well-wooded slopes of Gombe form a primate nirvana, supporting at least five species of monkey alongside a population of around 100 chimps, split between three communities. The park’s remoteness from the country’s main safari circuits means that it receives comparatively few visitors, but it’s a thoroughly rewarding excursion, offering the opportunity to track through lush tropical forest in search of the celebrity Kasekela chimp community, as habituated by Goodall in the 1960s.
Vegetation and habitats
Wildlife
Activities
Getting there
Where to stay
Nearby places of interest
Vegetation and habitats
- The rocky slopes of Gombe support a thick cover of brachystegia woodland, interrupted by belts of riparian forest along 13 streams.
Wildlife
- Gombe vies with nearby Mahale as the best place in Africa to track wild chimpanzees – it’s truly mind-blowing to come face to face with these spectacular great apes, which share more than 95% of their genes with humans.
- Gombe’s beachcomber baboons have also been studied for several decades and often hang around close to camp, providing a great opportunity to observe primate interaction on your doorstep.
- Other forest primates include red-tailed and blue monkeys, as well as red colobus, the latter frequently hunted by chimps.
- A checklist of 200 bird species includes fish eagle, palmnut vulture and Peter’s twinspot, all of which are frequent around camp.
Activities
- The main activity is chimpanzee tracking, which is best undertaken in the morning, though afternoon walks are also available.
- It is permitted to walk unguided in the immediate vicinity of camp, with a good chance of seeing baboons on the lakeshore and birds in the surrounding forest.
Getting there
- The park can be visited at any time. Chimps are generally more sedentary and easier to find in the fruiting season (Nov-May).
- The springboard for visits to Gombe, Kigoma lies on the lakeshore 24km south of the park headquarters at Kasekela. This sleepy port is serviced by regular flights, a thrice-weekly 48-hour train service from Dar es Salaam, and a lake ferry running south to Zambia.
- There is no road access to Gombe, but hotels in Kigoma can arrange motorboat charters – the transfer takes 30 minutes each way so a day trip is a possibility, but a couple of nights in the park greatly improve the odds of a good chimp sighting.
- For those wiling to brave public transport, inexpensive lake-taxis run daily along the lakeshore north of Kigoma, and will stop at Kasekela by request.
Where to stay
- A solitary luxury tented camp is situated on Mutumba Beach in the north of the park.
- More basic accommodation and a camping site can be found at Kasekela Research Centre on the lakeshore.
- A fair selection of hotels and basic guesthouses is available in Kigoma.
Nearby places of interest
- The timeworn port of Ujiji, only 10km from Kigoma, was the site of the most famous greeting ever uttered on African soil: “Dr Livingstone, I presume?”. A plaque marks a spot where Livingstone and Stanley met, and a small museum is dedicated to the occasion.
Checklist of conspicuous and noteworthy mammals: bushbuck, common chimpanzee, olive baboon, blue monkey, red-tailed monkey, vervet monkey, red colobus.
