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Set deep in the heart of the
African interior, inaccessible by road and only 100km (60 miles)
south of where Stanley uttered that immortal greeting “Doctor
Livingstone, I presume”, is a scene reminiscent of an Indian
Ocean island beach idyll.
Silky white coves hem in the azure
waters of Lake Tanganyika, overshadowed by a chain of wild,
jungle-draped peaks towering almost 2km above the shore: the
remote and mysterious Mahale Mountains.
Mahale Mountains, like its
northerly neighbour Gombe Stream, is home to some of Africa’s
last remaining wild chimpanzees: a population of roughly 800,
habituated to human visitors by a Japanese research project
founded in the 1960s. Tracking the chimps of Mahale is a magical
experience. The guide's eyes pick out last night's nests -
shadowy clumps high in a gallery of trees crowding the sky.
Scraps of half-eaten fruit and fresh dung become valuable clues,
leading deeper into the forest. Butterflies flit in the dappled
sunlight.
Then suddenly you are in their
midst: preening each other's glossy coats in concentrated
huddles, squabbling noisily, or bounding into the trees to swing
effortlessly between the vines.
The area is also known as Nkungwe,
after the park's largest mountain, held sacred by the local
Tongwe people, and at 2,460 metres (8,069 ft) the highest of the
six prominent points that make up the Mahale Range.
And while chimpanzees are the star
attraction, the slopes support a diverse forest fauna, including
readily observed troops of red colobus, red-tailed and blue
monkeys, and a kaleidoscopic array of colourful forest birds.
You can trace the Tongwe people's
ancient pilgrimage to the mountain spirits, hiking through the
montane rainforest belt – home to an endemic race of Angola
colobus monkey - to high grassy ridges chequered with alpine
bamboo. Then bathe in the impossibly clear waters of the world’s
longest, second-deepest and least-polluted freshwater lake –
harbouring an estimated 1,000 fish species - before returning as
you came, by boat.
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