Gombe Stream National Park

Gombe Stream is the smallest national park in Tanzania at just 56 square kilometres, and one of the most historically significant conservation sites on the African continent. It sits on the eastern shore of Lake Tanganyika north of Kigoma, a strip of steep hills and forested valleys pressed against the water, with no road access. Every arrival is by boat, either the wooden lake taxi that runs from Kigoma or a private motor boat, and the first sight of the park is a wall of green rising above white sand beaches with the shrieks of monkeys carrying across the water.

The park protects a wild chimpanzee community of roughly one hundred individuals split across three habituated groups. This is where Jane Goodall arrived in July 1960 to begin the study that would rewrite our understanding of chimpanzee behaviour, tool use, hunting, warfare, family bonds and the emotional lives of great apes. The research station she founded is still active today, and the trails she cut through the ridges are the same ones your guide will lead you along at first light. Trackers set out before dawn to locate the previous night's nests, and radio a rendezvous point once the chimps have settled to feed.

Around the chimpanzees the forest supports one of the richest primate communities in East Africa, including red colobus, red-tailed monkey, blue monkey and olive baboon, all seen within minutes of leaving the beach. Birdlife is prolific, with African fish eagle and palm-nut vulture along the shore, Ross's turaco and Peter's twinspot in the canopy, and Livingstone's flycatcher and Bohm's bee-eater deeper inland. Bushbuck and bushpig work the forest floor, and monitor lizards patrol the streams.

Beyond chimp tracking, Gombe rewards guests who linger for a few days. A morning hike up to the Kakombe or Mkenke waterfalls follows the same streams the research team named in the 1960s. Sunrise kayak paddles on Lake Tanganyika, one of the oldest and deepest lakes in the world, hold their own quiet drama. Sunsets across the water towards the Democratic Republic of Congo are among the finest in Africa.