A chimpanzee paradise, where fantasy mountains and forests rise out of Lake Tanganyika.

The final hour of your journey to this far flung Garden of Eden is by boat on a cobalt blue lake, stretching 500 miles north to south and a mile below. As the fishing villages thin out and mountains rise, you begin to sense how much you've left behind. Time slows down in the silence of no roads for a hundred miles. The beauty is irrepressible. We’ve seen hunting dog on these beaches, bushbuck, even the pennant-winged night-jar.

Life here is a hedonistic wilderness cocktail. In the forest, as well as a completely wild-living, but habituated group of chimpanzees, live nine other species of primate, leopards and a host of shy forest creatures. Around them, streams are strung with vines, ripening fruit and jasmine flowers. By the beaches, with tropical fish around them like butterflies, hippopotami bob in its clear waters.

Mahale Mountains National Park

Mahale Mountains National Park is an idyllic lost world; few other people ever see the magical forest, mountain waterfalls, and the gin-clear lake.

map of Mahale National Park
Greystoke

Greystoke

Chada

Chada

Expeditionary walking camp

Expeditionary walking camp

Mkombes House is a must if you are looking for a whole Serengeti experience! We took our family of 8 and loved it. Highly recommend.

Get up close and personal with our genetic cousins at Greystoke Mahale. Perched treehouse-like on the sandy shores of Lake Tanganyika, it’s your base for tracking the fascinating troops of chimps that occupy the emerald Mahale Mountains.

Built on one of the most magnificent sites in the northern Serengeti, the Kogakuria Kopje, Lamai overlooks the area’s rolling grasslands – through which the great migration pours from July to October.

This camp is a once in a lifetime adventure! From sitting on the tent porch 20 meters from a zebra to breakfast on the plains with 20 new elephant friends, we cannot say enough about how amazing our experience has been.

Low-impact Entamanu is set slightly apart, but close enough to have astonishing views into the crater bowl and the Serengeti behind (the name means “circle” in the Masai language).

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