Gombe National Park
Size
Just over thirty square kilometres (twelve square miles), the smallest park in Tanzania
What Gombe, formerly Gombe Stream National Park, is known for
Chimpanzees, the work of Jane Goodall and Lake Tanganyika
Gombe from Kigoma
By boat only, one to two hours with a fast boat
Best time to visit Gombe
July to October for the easiest paths, possible all year
We recommend
Two nights, so that you can trek twice
On 14 July 1960 a twenty-six year old British woman with no university degree stepped ashore on a pebble beach on Lake Tanganyika. Jane Goodall came at the request of the palaeontologist Louis Leakey, to observe chimpanzees, and what she found changed how science looked at animals and at ourselves.
She watched a chimpanzee she called David Greybeard strip the leaves from a twig and use it to fish termites out of a mound. He was not only using an object, he was making a tool of it, and until that moment that counted as something only humans did. Leakey wrote back to her that we must now either redefine tools, or redefine man, or accept chimpanzees as human.
That research has never stopped. The daily observations have run without a break since 1960, which makes it the longest running study of wild chimpanzees in the world. Anyone who comes here walks through the forest where all of it happened, past the old feeding station and along the paths that generations of researchers have worn down. And the landscape is something in itself. Gombe is a narrow strip of mountain rainforest on the steep fault wall of the Rift Valley, cut through by thirteen to sixteen valleys with streams that carry water all year.
Below lies Lake Tanganyika, the second deepest lake in the world, with clear water and hundreds of fish species that occur nowhere else. After a hard morning in the mountains you can walk straight into the lake.
Gombe is small, and that means something. About 77 chimpanzees still live here, spread over three communities, which is almost half the 120 to 150 of the sixties.
There is hardly any other large game. No lions, no elephants, no Big Five, and there are no roads so no game drives either. A traveller summed it up bluntly, apart from the chimpanzees there is no other animal to speak of.
The terrain is steep and often slippery, and a trek takes one to three hours, sometimes longer. And the accommodation in the park is simple.
What you get back for it is a place where history was written, chimpanzees that have been used to people for generations, and a lake you can swim in at the end of the day.
Three communities live in the park. Kasekela in the middle is the best habituated and is the group Jane Goodall studied, and it is also the group most visitors see. Mitumba in the north is the second community open to visitors, quieter. Kalande in the south has largely collapsed and is not opened up for tourism. Sightings are never guaranteed, and the park authority says so itself. In the dry season the chances are good, in other months guides on the ground sometimes put it at about half. That is exactly why we recommend two nights, so that you can trek twice.
Gombe is small and narrow, so you move within an area you can hold in your head. Kasekela in the middle is the heart. This is where the park headquarters, the research centre, most of the accommodation and the old feeding station are, where Goodall came to know the chimpanzees. From here the paths run into the forest, to the Kakombe waterfall and up to Jane's Peak, with views over the lake and the valleys. Mitumba in the north is the second community open to visitors, and it is quieter there. Kalande in the south is not accessible to visitors. There are more than forty-five kilometres of paths in the park, so there is more walking here than the chimpanzee trek alone.
The chimpanzees of Gombe have been followed daily for more than sixty years, and that is exactly why you can find them. The trackers know where the group built its nests the evening before, and that is where the morning starts. They work on sound and on tracks. Calling that rolls across the valley, broken branches, freshly eaten fruit on the ground. As soon as they find the group you hear about it, and then you climb up to them.
What makes the guides here unusual on top of that is their knowledge of the animals themselves. Many chimpanzees are known by name, with their family line and their history, because it has been recorded for decades. So you are not looking at a random ape, but at an animal someone can tell you who its mother was.
And your guide sets the pace. The slopes are steep and often slippery, and sometimes you have to push through scrub. Walking calmly and stopping in time is not a luxury here.
November and December
Two nights at least. The reason is simple. Chimpanzees are never guaranteed, and with one trek you put everything on a single attempt. If they are far off that morning or high in the trees, the visit disappoints and there is no second chance. With two nights you trek on two mornings, and that raises your chance considerably.
A day trip from Kigoma is possible, and travellers do it. For someone already in Kigoma with little time, that is a defensible choice. But you travel far and pay a lot for one attempt, and that is exactly why we would rather plan it differently.
What you can do here alongside the chimpanzees: walking the more than forty-five kilometres of paths, to the Kakombe and Mkenke waterfalls and up to Jane's Peak. Birdwatching. And out on the lake, with a boat trip, snorkelling or swimming among the cichlids.
Gombe or Mahale? We get this question often, because both parks lie on the same lake and are about chimpanzees. Choose Gombe for the history, the accessibility and lower costs for your stay. Choose Mahale for more chimpanzees, better accommodation and mountains that rise straight out of the lake.
Like Mahale, Gombe works best as an addition to a larger trip. You usually do your safari in Tanzania first and then fly west.
The choice in Gombe is small, and in practice one camp comes into consideration for our travellers. Gombe Forest Lodge lies on the shore, with seven tents on wooden platforms under old mango trees, for a maximum of fourteen guests at a time. Each tent has its own bathroom and a veranda on the water, and they are named after chimpanzees the researchers know by name. You eat inside or on the beach, and in the evening you sit by the fire with the lake in front of you. What is pleasant about this camp is that the daily chimpanzee trek and the kayaking are in the rate, so you know in advance where you stand. The camp is closed in March, April and May.
Combining Gombe with a safari
The classic tour through the north, from Lake Manyara, the Ngorongoro Crater and the Serengeti, with Zanzibar to finish. The flight west to Kigoma fits on after the north, and a boat covers the last stretch.
Nine days following the migration through the Serengeti, with Tarangire and the Ngorongoro Crater on the way. From Arusha you then fly west to Kigoma, and from there it is a boat to the forest.
Fifteen days through Nyerere, Mikumi and Ruaha, far from the crowds. This is the longest way round to Gombe of the three, because the flights to Kigoma leave from Dar es Salaam and Arusha.