Tanzania
Gombe Stream National Park
Six decades of habituated chimpanzee families in a forest strip so narrow you hear the lake.
The park is a strip: 52 square kilometres of steep forest between ridge and lake, so narrow the water glints through the trees. Jane Goodall started here in 1960, and the chimpanzee families she named are still in these hills.
Gombe is Tanzania's smallest national park and one of science's largest stories: Goodall's 1960 research station began the longest-running primate study in history, and the habituated community remains, tracked in small capped groups through steep terrain with health distances enforced. The boat from Kigoma is the way in, July to October gives firm trails with the chimps on the lower slopes, and Kasekela Rest House inside the park cooks pre-booked meals or hosts self-caterers with provisions brought by boat.
Solo
Gombe suits a patient solo traveller who will follow guide instructions and regard chimpanzee movement as unknowable.
- Goodall's 1960 station began the longest-running primate study in history.
- The habituated chimpanzee families remain, tracked in small capped groups.
- The park is a forest strip so narrow the lake shows through the trees.
- July to October gives firm trails and lower-slope chimps.
Kasekela Rest House inside the park cooks local and western dishes, pre-booked.
Dinner leans on the lake: tilapia, Nile perch and dagaa from Tanganyika's catch.
Iringa
Tanzania
The chief who defied an empire got his skull back in 1954; his town remembers.
Pare Mountains
Tanzania
Irrigation channels cut centuries ago still water the terraces below.
Songo Mnara
Tanzania
A medieval Swahili town crumbles into mangrove roots, its rooms still legible.
Kondoa Rock Art Sites
Tanzania
Ten thousand years of ochre hunters layer the sandstone of a valley few visit.