Mahale National Park is an angelic destination in Tanzania along its southern circuit, it is renowned for its resident species the chimpanzee, and uniquely having great apes co-exist together with Lions. Mahale obtains its name from the Mahale mountain range which is a growing beautiful river rine forest, miombo forest, and savannah vegetation. The 1,650 square kilometre national parkstraddles the easternshowers of Lake Tanganyika, protecting a high population density ofprimates. The park is one of the most amazing destinations in the country, it is exclusive, private, and with less crowd all year round.
How to reach Mahale National Park begins from 2 major cities depending on which guest arrives, the most preferred method of transfer is by flight from Dar-es-Salaam or Julius Nyerere International Airport, or Kilimanjaro International Airport, flights are arranged by domestic flight handlers through your ground handling team, or directly through the tour operator, flights are operated twice daily on schedule, charter flights can be booked to the nearest airport or the Zantasiar helipad part of the MbaliMbali lodge. Domestic airlines for example Safari Air Link operate flights to this route however other flight companies like Zani Air, Precision Air, and Coastal Aviation can be used to airstrips near Kigoma town.
Flying to Mahale National Park will require you to have proper documents to be granted a flight to the destination, these include a valid passport of at least 6 months to the month of expiry, visa, yellow fever vaccination, and visa into Tanzania among other requirements, the scenic views of the countryside is amazingly beautiful as you approach proximity to the national park.
By road Mahale National Park can be reached from Arusha, it is a long-distance drive that will require more than a day to Kigoma town, upon arrival you will be ushered to the speed boat to the national park, road transfers are private ones conducted by tour operators using 4×4-wheel cars.
Mahale National Park is popular for chimpanzee tracking, which takes place beginning from the park headquarters with a briefing from the park rangers, the forest is one of the world’s places to find the largest population of chimpanzees, uniquely these live together with lions, and other animal species of the destination include yellow baboons, black and white colobus monkeys, vervet monkeys, red-tailed monkeys, baboons, lions, wild dogs, roan antelopes, buffaloes although some of these are rare to see.
Mahale National Park is a great destination to go birding, there are over 350 species of birds recorded in the national park, example bird types include kingfishers, crested guinea fowls, African fish eagles, warblers, and sunbirds among other bird types.
The national park can be visited any time of the year butis best during the dry season between the months of December-February and June -September when the trails are much drier and easier to access, the grasses tend to be shorter for travellers who are interested in viewing mammal species.
In conclusion, Mahale National Park is larger than Gombe Stream National Park, these can be visited together.