So we all have descended from the ape family, right, but are you enthusiastic to closely know how our ancient ancestors looked and behaved like? Trek Chimpanzees in Tanzania and explore yourself the fun of watching these innocent creatures! While Tanzania is much known about its gaming and safari adventure, the chimp trekking in the Manhale Mountains is a bit unusual, yet truly mesmerising. Chimp trekking in Tanzania is essentially located in the far west of the country and near the eastern shore of the Lake Tanganyika. Another more researched, but a comparatively smaller chimpanzee trekking area is the Gombe National Park.
The Manhale lies about a hundred miles away from the Kogoma. It is about a four hour flight from Arusha, however, the spectacular views of the changing canopy, during your flight, is going to keep you spellbound and entertained. Situated in the midst of beautifully flowing streams and waterfalls, the massive forest trees of the Manhale Mountains are a home to hundreds of Chimpanzees. You can also have a glimpse of the spectacular canopy of the Lake Tanganyika from here, when you may suddenly meet a cute looking Chimpanzee! The Manhale Mountains are an amazing place to visualize live chimpanzee social interactions. Since, most of the chimps are personally and individually known because of routine documentations, the trekkers and the guides will follow the route that will most likely let you encounter a chimpanzee or perhaps an entire chimpanzee family! This kind of interactive game viewing is very rare and is unusual than the rests, which we usually observe in the Serengeti or probably the Ngorongoro or others. An average walk or trekking lasts for about 2 to 3 hours, however, this is only the case when your guide keeps updates about all the chimp activities and takes you through a well-defined animal track. You should at least plan for a three day stay for conquering the Manhale Mountains and to know more about these nomadic creatures.
Talking about where you can exactly locate these chimps in the forest, it would be important to note that the food that the chimpanzees like, are widely scattered throughout the forests and therefore these chimps do not follow any definite migration pattern. They also have some secret hideouts for mating, where you shouldn’t proceed! However, these chimps have become quite habituated to human explorers and they usually ignore us, until you annoy them. Some chimps may even cross just a few feet away from you! The best time to see these chimps are during the dry season, that is, from June to October. The rest of the months, just like humans, the chimps don’t like to face the weather. However, the cost of staying in the low season months is comparatively much cheaper than the high season months. You can also spot here other species of apes like the red tailed monkeys, white colobus, red colobus and even the big cats like the leopards!
To explore this mighty land, you have to travel through boats and then walk. There are no car facilities available here. Photographic opportunities are good here, however, you are forbidden to use flash photography as they irritate the chimps. You are also required to wear face masks so that there is minimum risk of transmission of diseases through these apes.