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.
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.
Greystoke
Chada
Expeditionary walking camp
Discover our Mahale camps
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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.
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In a grove of sausage trees in Ruaha National Park on the banks of the Ifuguru River, in the best game area in the park.
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Greystoke Mahale, on the shores of Lake Tanganyika, has been around for many years. In the far and not much-explored west of Tanzania, it’s the best place in the country (probably in all Africa, actually, outside of the Democratic Republic of the Congo) to observe chimpanzees in their natural habitats.
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Lamai sticks its head above the rest both literally and figuratively.
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In the entire park, there is not a single road, so your entire experience will be on foot. This is a wholly unique wilderness and a long way off the beaten track. But the lake, the beaches, the extraordinary forest, and of course the chimpanzees all make it a journey well worth undertaking.