Covering an area of only 56 km, Gombe National Park is Tanzania’s smallest park. The park’s most attractions are its famous primate inhabitants and its connection to Jane Goodall. First researched in the 60’s by Jane Goodall, Gombe is heaven for chimpanzee lovers.
Many of Gombe’s chimps are well habituated inside the park. Though it is a little difficult, sweaty walking steep hills and valleys, but the experience is so tempting. If you head out early in the morning sightings are nearly guaranteed and incredible. The experience is one that you are unlikely to forget.
Gombe is placed at the shore of Lake Tanganyika. The forest is verdant and 13 streams run down the escarpment to the sandy beach. The view of the forested slopes touching the steep escarpment is the most appealing one.
In addition to the main attraction chimpanzee, the park is also home to a troop of habituated olive baboon that can usually be found on the lakeshore. There are several other monkey species present, including red colobus monkey, while red-tailed, which are sometimes hunted by the chimps.
The park also harbours diverse colourful bird species. The notable are African broadbill, Black saw-wing, Crowned eagle, Double-toothed barbet, Kenya rufous sparrow, Livingstone’s turaco, Palm-nut vulture, Peter’s twinspot, Red-capped robin-chat, Red-chested cuckoo, Ross’s turaco, Yellow-rumped tinkerbird.
Despite chimp tracking, you can take walks along the lakeshore, and go and see Jane’s old chimp-feeding station, the viewpoint on Jane’s Peak and Kakombe Waterfall.
Gombe National Park is best throughout the year. But the dry season (July to October) gives the best opportunity to find chimpanzees quickly. During the dry season, the chimps tend to stick to the lower slopes.
During the wet season it’s hard to spot chimpanzees.
With the most attractive chimpanzee, olive baboon and several other monkey species including red colobus monkey, while red-tailed monkeys are spotted in the park.
The park also harbours diverse colourful bird species. The notable are African broadbill, Black saw-wing, Crowned eagle, Double-toothed barbet, Kenya rufous sparrow, Livingstone’s turaco, Palm-nut vulture, Peter's twinspot, Red-capped robin-chat, Red-chested cuckoo, Ross's turaco, Yellow-rumped tinkerbird.
The fee is $100 per person per 24 hours.
The 24 hour permit usually starts from when you enter the forest.
Chimpanzee trekking
Bird watching
Nature Walks
Primate Trekking
Like other national parks, travelling to Gombe National Park is also safe. Although some health concerns are necessary to follow, like mosquito repellent with at least 30% DEET, antimalaria medication and covering the skin during the evening time.
Most importantly you need to follow the instructions of your guide in your whole trip.
Our guides, our accommodations and our tour not only lived up to our expectations, they exceeded them. We were a group of six. We were met at the Nairobi airport by Mark, who drove us to our hotel (Eka). In the brief time we had with him, we thought Mark was great. Read More...
Everything was very well arranged. Except for our first gate entry which took more than 1 hour everything else was perfectly planned and done. Excellent professional and polite service through out our stay. Read More...
It is always a little intimidating traveling overseas and there were some minor hiccups in communication, however, the situation was dealt with promptly and professionally. The trip was organized to our specifications with much appreciated recommendations to improve our visit. Read More...
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