3 Days Gombe Stream Chimpanzee Trek from Kigoma

Day-by-day itinerary

1. Day1
   

   Kigoma to Gombe Stream National Park by Boat

   Our guide meets you at Kigoma Airport, where the Air Tanzania flight from Dar es Salaam lands after roughly two hours in the air. Kigoma is a quiet lake port in the far west of Tanzania, and the short drive through town takes you down to the water at Kibirizi, where the wooden lake boats wait. Gombe has no road access, so the boat is the only way in. The ride north along the shore takes about one and a half hours, past fishing villages, drying racks of dagaa sardines and steep hills covered in miombo woodland. Lake Tanganyika runs 673 km from north to south and drops to 1,470 m at its deepest, the second deepest lake on earth, and the water here is clear enough to see the stones below the boat. After checking in at your lodge on the beach, a ranger leads a short walk to the Kakombe stream or, if there is light left, up toward the forest edge. Dinner and overnight at Mbali Mbali Gombe Lodge or the park rest house.

   • Boat to Gombe
   • Mbali Mbali Gombe Lodge or park rest house
   • Lunch, dinner
2. Day2
   

   A Full Day Tracking Chimpanzees in Gombe

   Breakfast is early, because the trackers head out at first light to find where the chimpanzees nested the night before. Gombe is the place where Jane Goodall began her research in July 1960, and the study she started is still running, the longest-running field study of wild chimpanzees anywhere. The Kasekela community you follow is used to people, and some of today’s adults descend from the chimpanzees she named. Trails climb steeply from the lake through valleys of thick forest, so expect anywhere from one to four hours of walking before you reach them. Once the group is found, you have one hour with the chimpanzees, in a party of no more than six visitors, keeping about 10 m away. You may watch grooming, fig feeding, youngsters wrestling or a male charging through the undergrowth. In the afternoon, swim from the beach (away from the river mouths), watch olive baboons on the sand or walk up toward Jane’s Peak for the view across the lake to Congo. Dinner and overnight at your Gombe lodge.

   • Chimpanzee tracking
   • Mbali Mbali Gombe Lodge or park rest house
   • Breakfast, lunch, dinner
3. Day3
   

   Morning on the Lakeshore and Boat Back to Kigoma

   The last morning is yours. Early risers can join a second forest walk with a ranger toward the Kakombe waterfall, where the stream drops over a mossy rock wall in the shade of tall trees, or sit on the beach with coffee while the fishermen bring in their night’s catch. Red-tailed and red colobus monkeys feed in the trees above the camp, and Gombe has recorded more than 200 bird species, so a pair of binoculars pays off even on a lazy morning. After breakfast the boat takes you back south along the shore to Kigoma, about one and a half hours on the water. If your flight leaves later in the day, our guide can stop at Ujiji, around 10 km from Kigoma town, where a memorial marks the spot Henry Morton Stanley met David Livingstone in 1871. It is one of the oldest market towns in western Tanzania, and the old Arab trade route to the coast ended here. Transfer to Kigoma Airport for your flight onward. End of the safari.

   • Boat back to Kigoma
   • Breakfast