Set among the spectacular, forested slopes of the Mahale Mountains, the Mahale Mountains National Park was originally created to protect the thousands of chimpanzees that inhabit the region. It is renowned for its fantastic sunsets over Lake Tanganyika, which makes it an essential stop for keen photographers and safari enthusiasts.
The park’s breathtaking array of habitats include rainforest, grasslands, alpine bamboo and woodlands; where some 50 species of animals have been recorded, predominant among these being representatives from various monkey and ape families, and over 90 unique species of fish swim in the clear waters of the lake.
How to get to Mahale National Park
Mahale Mountains National Park is not the easiest or cheapest place to get to. Depending on your itinerary, your entry point to the country will be either Kilimanjaro International Airport (JRO), about 50km/31mi from Arusha, or Julius Nyerere International Airport (DAR) in Dar es Salaam. In most cases, your tour operator will pick you up from the airport and make ongoing arrangements.
Most people visit Mahale on an all-inclusive 3- or 4-night fly-in package from Arusha. This incorporates return flights to Kalilani airstrip (just outside of the park), accommodation at one of two exclusive lakeshore lodges, and the 90-minute boat transfer from the airstrip to your lodge. These packages usually start on a Monday and Thursday, the days on which scheduled charter flights run in conjunction with the lodges.
Flights from Arusha can pick up clients at other airstrips in northern Tanzania such as Lake Manyara National Park or Serengeti National Park. They also usually stop at Katavi National Park, which is often visited as part of a 7-night package with Mahale.
Coming from southern Tanzania, the only scheduled flight is a twice-weekly Safari Air Link service between Ruaha, Katavi and Mahale Mountains National Parks. This also runs on Mondays and Thursdays.
Budget tours to Mahale (which still tend to be quite costly) usually start at the port of Kigoma, which is connected to Dar es Salaam by scheduled flights with Air Tanzania. From Kigoma you will usually travel by a combination of road and boat to the national park rest camp at Kasiha. Allow a full day’s travel from Kigoma to the camp.
Wildlife & Animals – Mahale Mountains NP
Mahale Mountains National Park’s main attraction is the opportunity to track chimpanzees, our closest relatives, on foot. Roughly 900 chimps inhabit the park, and the habituated community of about 75 individuals is very used to people. Guides and trackers are on hand to take you hiking along the forest trails to find these charismatic creatures.
Nine primate species have been recorded in the park, most notably chimpanzee and the endangered Ugandan red colobus, which is known from only four other locations in Tanzania and Uganda.
Yellow baboon, blue monkey, red-tailed monkey and vervet monkey are also likely to be seen, and you might hear lesser and greater galago at night. The nocturnal bushpig is also quite often heard foraging around lakeshore accommodations at night.
Mahale’s inaccessible eastern slopes support seldom-seen populations of elephant, lion, wild dog, roan antelope, buffalo and giraffe. An undescribed subspecies of Angola colobus is endemic to the forested upper slopes of Mount Nkungwe and likely to be seen only by those who do a day hike there.
