tanzania: chimpanzee tracking

Sightings are usually good, though nobody promises a wild animal and no official success rate exists for Mahale, so we quote none.

The M group has been studied and habituated for more than forty years, the trackers start from where it was last seen, and a trek is often one to four hours on steep, humid forest trails.

Late in the dry months, roughly August to October, the chimpanzees tend to feed on the lower slopes near the lakeshore, which shortens the walk.

Once they are found the park authority's rules take over:

• One hour with them at most
• Ten metres back at all times
• A mask over the nose and mouth within fifty metres
• No more than six visitors plus a guide

Tracking stops three hours after the first sighting whatever happens.

Three of these ten nights are given to walking, so this leg asks for someone happy on their feet for a few hours rather than an athlete.

A guide and an armed ranger lead, the pace is slow, and the ground is sandy riverbed, open plain and rocky hills. A walk of this kind covers no great distance, stopping often to work out what passed and when, so patience counts for more than stamina.

Trainers or light boots both work, open shoes and sandals are not allowed, and the camp asks for greens, browns and khaki so the party is harder to pick out. Nights from June to September in Ruaha can fall to around five degrees, so bring a warm layer.

Game drives and night drives fill the hours the walking does not.

By light aircraft, on a timetable that runs twice a week.

The shared charters serving Katavi and Mahale go on Mondays and Thursdays only, so every stay out west falls into a block of either three nights or four, and that is what sets the shape of this route.

Flying time into Katavi is three to five hours, depending on how many airstrips the aircraft calls at, and Ikuu is a further thirty to forty-five minutes by game drive. Mahale has no road at all, so a dhow completes the arrival, ninety minutes down the lakeshore from the park airstrip.

The service linking Ruaha to Mahale by way of Katavi runs from June to October, which narrows the months this route works in. Bags must be soft and are held to about 15 kilograms each, hand luggage counted in.

July to October, and this is one of the few routes where the calendar decides for you.

Ruaha, Katavi, Mahale and Arusha all carry our top rating then, the western flights that link them run from June to October, and the chimpanzees tend to be lower down the slopes then, with August and September the pick. Katavi is at its most concentrated as the Katuma shrinks, though October is its hottest month.

June works as well, with Mahale a little wetter underfoot and the forest greener.

March, April and May are out rather than a compromise, since the camps in Katavi and Mahale shut for the long rains, and we would point you at another part of the country for those dates.

Water, or the shortage of it, drives everything here.

From June to October the Katuma River contracts to muddy pools and the Chada plain dries out, so buffalo gather in herds of hundreds, hippos crowd whatever water is left, crocodiles line the banks and lion work the edges. Katavi is best known for those crowded hippo pools.

The park is large and holds only a handful of camps, so a whole day can pass without meeting another vehicle, which is most of the reason people come this far west.

Days run to morning, afternoon and full-day drives in open vehicles, and the camp also offers guided walks, night drives, bush meals and a night out at its fly camp, any of which we can build in before you travel.

Most of it can move.

The nights divide differently between the three parks, a fourth night at Mahale is the change we suggest most often, and Gombe, further north on the same lake, can be added for a second chimpanzee population.

Two things do not move. The first is the calendar: the Katavi camp runs from June to mid November and from mid December to mid February, the Mahale camp from June to mid March, and both shut for the long rains, so this route cannot run between the middle of February and the end of May, nor in the month between the middle of November and the middle of December.

The second is the flight pattern, since the western services fly on Mondays and Thursdays and that sets the length of each stay. The minimum age at both camps is twelve, which is also the park authority's limit for visiting chimpanzees.