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

Safari game drives are commonplace on the continent, but few do them like Nomad. Its camps are not only located in some of the most far flung corners of the country, but are a mix of permanent sites, removable tents that disappear with the seasons, and mobile camps that mirror migration routes.

This is one of the few parks where you can walk and fly-camp – all that’s between you and the dark is a sheet of canvas.

Rooms are hidden among massive boulders on a little kopje - each with astonishing views over hundreds of miles of wriggling, giggling, trumpeting, roaring creatures

 A comfortable tent, hot water bucket shower, and delicious meal awaits at the end of the day and your adventure deep into the wilderness. Evenings are best enjoyed around a crackling fire under a blanket of stars listening to the nocturnal calls of the bush. There is nothing quite like it in the world.

This is to South Africa’s Kruger Park what most safaris are to Whipsnade Zoo.

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