What is Mahale National Park famous for? Mahale Mountains National Park is incredibly beautiful, with the Mahale Mountains as a backdrop and lush, tropical vegetation, but the question is: How to Get to Mahale Mountains National Park? Mahale Mountains National Park is located in rural western Tanzania on the eastern banks of Lake Tanganyika. The wild, serene, and uncrowded Mahale Mountains National Park is located in Tanzania’s far western remote areas. It can be reached in a variety of ways from Dar es Salaam or Arusha to Kigoma, the closest major town, which is located about 130 km north of the park along the lakeshore.
The only convenient and fastest way to reach Mahale Mountains National Park is by air. Several domestic aviation companies, including Safari Air Link, operate scheduled charter flights from Dar es Salaam and Arusha to Mahale Airstrip during the dry peak season, with travel times of three to five hours. During the wet season, charter flights operate less frequently.
Twice-weekly shared charter flights between the northern circuit for safaris and western Tanzania, including Katavi and Mahale National Parks, are provided by Zantasair in collaboration with its sister company, Mbali Mbali lodges, located in Mahale Mountains National Park.
Another option for getting to the Mahale Mountains National Park is by road. You would need to drive from Arusha to Kigoma and then take a speed boat to get there. However, these roads can be difficult and time-consuming, and they can become impassable during the rainy season due to their extreme mud.
By boat: Timber boats can travel up to 15 hours to reach Mahale National Park from Kigoma, while speedboats can reach the park in four to six hours. The MV Liemba, a spacious steamship, sails from Kigoma to this park twice a week, taking over ten hours to arrive.
Tourist activities in Mahale Mountains National Park
The experience of exploring Mahale Mountains National Park on foot ensures visitors a complete wild-living and hedonistic wilderness cocktail of exploration as they partake in the following various tourist activities in Mahale Mountains National Park. The park itself is accessible by airport and boat, and there are no roads crossing through it.
Chimpanzee trekking
The main activity in Mahale Mountains National Park is trekking with chimpanzees. The main attraction for chimpanzee trekkers is the habituated 60-strong Mimikere, or “M” group, which allows visitors to have up-close encounters with these closely related humans in the park’s dense forests. The experience of chimpanzee viewing in their habitat is captivating as a chimpanzee almost unexpectedly brushes past you on the trail and several other chimpanzees are visible in a clearing just ahead or high above in the treetops. You may not spot any chimps on your first visit, but it is rare to spend two or three days in the park without seeing any.
Hiking
A place of spiritual significance for the Tongwe people who once lived there, Mount Nkungwe is the park’s brooding peak and the opportunity to climb it. Mahale Mountains National Park is a wild frontier that rewards adventurous hikers with a wealth of wildlife and birdlife as well as breathtaking scenery. Nkungwe is incredibly climbable and offers a fantastic two- to three-day walk. You will be accompanied by an armed park ranger when you travel through dense grass and scrub to reach the summit, and the experience of sleeping en route will leave you speechless.
Walking safaris In addition, visitors enjoy strolling around the magnificently forested lush slopes of the Mahale Mountains National Park, which is usually very gratifying and offers amazing sights to see after the chimpanzees’ hoots and the melodies of the many bird species.
Walking safaris
In addition, visitors enjoy strolling around the magnificently forested lush slopes of the Mahale Mountains National Park, which is usually very gratifying and offers amazing sights to see after the chimpanzees’ hoots and the melodies of the many bird species.
Birdwatching
One of the most popular tourist activities in the Mahale Mountains National Park is bird viewing, which is made possible by the park’s lakeshores and forested Mahale Mountains. Birdwatching is popular, especially in the woodlands close to the main lodge area, where you may often spot a variety of species on short treks through the other forests inside the park, including hornbills, kingfishers on the shore, and guinea fowl.
Tourist Attractions
The fascinating tourist attractions of Mahale Mountains National Park are situated in this park, which is surrounded by lush tropical forest vegetation and boasts clear blue waters and white sand beaches on the shores of Lake Tanganyika. The park is also enclosed by mountain chains that rise up behind the lake. The main draws for tourists in Mahale Mountains National Park are the enormous population of primates, which includes the most notable and habituated animals in the park, such as habituated Mahale Chimpanzees that can be seen in large groups, as well as yellow baboons, red colobus, blue, red-tailed, and vervet monkeys that are always nearby. The park is home to a variety of amphibian and reptile species, as well as animals such as blue duikers, leopards, and lions. It is also estimated that there are more than 355 known bird species.
In addition to the population of primates, Mahale National Park is home to a variety of mammals, including elephants, giraffes, roan and sable antelopes, porcupines, and the ubiquitous warthog. The Mahale mountain ranges rise to 2,462 metres (8,077 feet) at the summit of Mount Nkungwe, creating the true beauty of an incredible wilderness. On their walk or hike to the park’s summits, visitors can also experience several hidden, straightforward waterfalls in the expansive tract woods of the Mahale summits National Park.
The breathtaking Lake Tanganyika shoreline, which is home to hippos, crocodiles, and a variety of endemic fish species, is another sight to behold in Mahale Mountains National Park. The streams are adorned with vines, ripening fruit, and jasmine flowers, and near the sandy beaches along the lake’s edge are Hunting Dogs, Bushbucks, and even the pennant-winged night-jar.
