Gombe is a rugged and mountainous landscape dominated by steep ridges. With over sixteen main valleys filled with fast-flowing streams all year round, the landscape is breathtaking. The chimpanzees, famous for Jane Goodall’s studies, are the most striking element of the park. Other mammals that can be seen in Gombe are green baboons, red colobus monkeys, and red-tailed colobus monkeys. The park also shelters over two hundred bird species, from the fishing eagle to the palm vulture. The park survives as a natural habitat due to its isolation.
It is a park without roads, where you can walk and discover nature with all your senses. Chimpanzee tracking usually starts early in the morning, guides typically leaving from the area where the chimpanzees nested the previous night. While a chimpanzee hike is of course the main activity, swimming and snorkeling in the lake afterwards is refreshing. The site of the famous “Dr Livingstone I presume” by Henry Stanley in Ujiji near Kigoma can also be visited.
Apart from the park’s rest-house, the only accommodation in Gombe National Park is Gombe Forest Lodge.