Gombe Stream is one of the smallest national parks in Tanzania — a narrow strip of forested escarpment running along the eastern shore of Lake Tanganyika about two hours by boat from Kigoma. It protects perhaps 100 chimpanzees, descendants of the troops Jane Goodall has been studying since 1960, and the experience of tracking them is on a different scale from the bigger parks elsewhere on the continent. The forest is steep and dense, and a sighting often means scrambling up muddy slopes following the sound of distant calls before suddenly finding yourself a few metres from a feeding family.
Most visitors come on a day trip from Kigoma, but staying overnight in the park's basic guesthouse or the more comfortable Mbali Mbali lodge dramatically increases the chances of finding the chimps unhurried. Rangers do the tracking; you walk, sometimes for several hours. The park also has good birdlife, troops of olive baboons habituated by Goodall's team, and small beaches where you can swim in the lake after the morning's hike.