Mahale Mountains National Park – Trek Wild Chimpanzees on Lake Tanganyika

Mahale Mountains National Park is one of Tanzania’s most remote, most spectacular, and most extraordinary national parks — a place of such breathtaking beauty, ecological richness, and wildlife wonder that it has been described by many experienced Africa travelers as the single most magical and memorable safari destination on the entire continent.

Located on the eastern shore of Lake Tanganyika in the Katavi Region of western Tanzania, Mahale Mountains National Park covers 1,613 square kilometres of pristine and largely undisturbed wilderness — a dramatic and ancient landscape of soaring mountain peaks, dense tropical rainforest, open woodland, and the stunning turquoise waters of Lake Tanganyika — the world’s longest, second deepest, and most species-rich freshwater lake.

Mahale is world-famous as one of the finest and most rewarding chimpanzee trekking destinations on Earth — home to the M-group — one of the largest, longest-studied, and best-habituated communities of wild chimpanzees in the world, with over 60 individual chimpanzees that have been continuously studied and habituated to human presence since Japanese primatologist Professor Toshisada Nishida began his groundbreaking research here in 1965 — just four years after Jane Goodall began her famous chimpanzee research at nearby Gombe Stream.