How to get to Gombe National Park

Tracking the chimps is a fascinating experience. When Jane Goodall arrived in 1960, Tanzania’s Gombe Stream National Park was just one piece of forest amidst a vast ocean of trees. Today, it’s a small green island engulfed by farms, fields, and villages. Despite the change, this tiny park (a mere 30 square miles) is still one of the best places in the world to see wild chimpanzees in their natural habitat. During her research time at Gombe, Goodall made many new discoveries about chimpanzees, detailing their social hierarchy, their calls and previously unsuspected behavior.

Less than 150 chimpanzees live in the Park. The exact number of chimpanzees is unclear since no census has been conducted. Ongoing studies and analyses examine mother-infant relations, vocal communications, and botanical collections. Fifi, the last surviving member of the original community, and its matriarch, was only three years old when Jane Goodall first arrived in Gombe, and she is still regularly seen by visitors. There is ongoing field research and Gombe Stream Research Center (GSRC) also takes a role in conservation education. Both research and education play important roles in preserving free-living chimpanzees and their habitats.

Before Dr. Goodall could watch the Gombe chimpanzees, much time was spent getting them used to human observers. From 1962-1965, she used random provisioning to get the chimps used to the presence of humans. These observations have found distinct patterns of behavior in the different communities of chimpanzees. The chimpanzees of Gombe have three unique patterns and are also known to share 13 behavioral patterns with other chimpanzees. Some shared patterns are: “termite-fish using non-leaf materials,” “lever open” (stick used to enlarge an entrance), “self-tickle” (tickle self, using objects), and “Rain dance” (slow display at the start of rain). Some unique patterns are: “leaf squash” (squash bug on leaf) and “ant-dip-wipe” (manually wipe ants off wand).

The most visible of Gombe’s other mammals are also primates. A troop of beachcomber olive baboons, understudy since the 1960s, is exceptionally habituated, while red-tailed and red colobus monkeys – the latter regularly hunted by chimps – stick to the forest canopy. The park’s 200-odd bird species range from the iconic fish eagle to the jewel-like

Peter’s twin spots hop tamely around the visitors’ center. After dusk, a dazzling night sky is complemented by the lanterns of hundreds of small wooden boats, bobbing on the lake like a sprawling city.

Gombe National Park was established in 1968. It is located on the eastern shore of Lake Tanganyika, 15 km north of the town of Kigoma, and is accessible only by boat. The landscape of the park is made up of steep valleys, streams, and rivers. The vegetation changes from tropical rainforests and alpine bamboo to grasslands – similar to that of neighboring Mahale Mountains National Park.

The park is rich in both human and natural history. The village of Ujiji is where historians think British researcher H.M. Stanley said the famous words “Dr. Livingstone, I presume?” in 1871 when he encountered fellow adventurer David Livingstone, who had been thought to have died. Though he was seriously ill, Livingstone convinced Stanley to join him on a search to find the source of the Nile — a quest that took them through the Gombe Valley.

The park’s narrow, steep valleys are carpeted by evergreen rainforests that give way to grass-topped ridges and alpine bamboo stands, are home to two kinds of acrobatic colobus monkeys, along with giant kingfishers, crowned eagles, bushpigs, trumpeter hornbills, and more than 50 other wild species. Snorkelers may enjoy the adjoining lake, which holds almost 100 kinds of brightly-colored cichlid fish.