Western Tanzania Adventure

Katavi National Park * Mahale National Park

For the perfect escape from the crowds, take a week to explore the wild, remote but rewarding Tanzanian National Parks of Katavi and Mahale in Western Tanzania. Both are gloriously scenic but utterly contrasting, linked by convenient safari flights and by the fact that they are both marvellously isolated and little visited.

Where else but Katavi can one enjoy vast herds of buffalo, pools oozing with more hippo than mud and great river bridges of crocodile? And then secure such privileged, exclusive access to chimpanzees so close as in Mahale?

Western Tanzania Adventure at a Glance:

• Fly from Dar es Salaam to Katavi for 3 (or 4) nights on safari
• Fly onto Mahale for 4 (or 3) nights (in search of Chimpanzees)
• Fly back to Dar es Salaam

You can also depart on a Thursday (instead of Monday) in which case you would have 4 nights in Katavi and 3 nights in Mahale.

Wonderfully remote and un-touristy, Katavi offers a varied landscape of beautiful woodlands, floodplains and arid landscapes. In the dry season, there is nowhere to match Katavi National Park for huge herds of elephant. At any time of the year, the Hippo Pool puts all other hippo pools to shame; hundreds of closely-packed hippos grunting and snorting generally luxuriating in a great, black, sticky mud of hippo waste!

The Mahale National Park is the most remote and one of the smallest of Tanzania's National Parks, its forested mountain peaks hugging the shore of Lake Tanganyika in Western Tanzania and providing a protected habitat for chimpanzees. Inaccessible by road, Mahale covers an area of approximately 1,600km2. Access is initially by light aircraft, and then by dhow.

Chimpanzee trek in Gombe Stream National Park

Hilly and richly vegetated, Mahale is one of two chimpanzee protection zones in Tanzania; the other is the nearby Gombe Stream National Park. A Japanese research team has habituated one group of Mahale chimpanzees called the Mimikire Clan (out of a total population perhaps approaching a thousand), allowing some excellent sightings.

Don’t expect the reward of a great encounter without some hard walking and climbing! The best time to visit is generally accepted to be the dry season which runs roughly from July to October. It is possible to visit at all times of year, but away from the dry season you can expect the walking to be harder because of the slippery tracks and because the chimpanzees will tend to be further away from the lake shore. Your base here is the lovely Mbali Mbali Mahale.

Tailor-made options:

10 night safari - You can also add on 3 nights in the Serengeti National Park at Mbali Mbai Soroi Serengeti Lodge. This doesnt change the 7 night programme but it includes 3 nights at their sister lodge in the Serengeti National Park, Mbali Mbali Soroi Serengeti Lodge.