Mahale Mountains National Park Mahale Mountains National Park is without doubt one of Africa’s most beautiful parks. It is located on the edge of Lake Tanganyika in the west of the country.
It is generally around 6,000 feet high with accompanying high rainfall so the best time to visit is in the drier months, normally May to September.
The park is made up of montane forests and grasslands, along with small pockets of alpine bamboo.
Mahale is most famous for being a chimpanzee sanctuary with an estimated 1,000 chimpanzees living here in around 20 family groups and even though access to the park is only by aeroplane and boat, the allure of seeing chimpanzees in the wild is enough to tempt many visitors to the region.
As well as chimps, there are eight other primate species:
- red colobus
- red-tailed monkey
- blue monkey
- vervet monkey
- yellow baboon
- Angola black-and-white colobus
- lesser galago
- thick-tailed greater galago
Primates aside, the brush-tailed porcupine and giant forest squirrel are another two interesting species found here.
