Greystoke Mahale

Greystoke’s Thatched Rooms face out over the calming waters of Lake Tanganyika. The rooms are built from salvaged dhow wood and thatch, and are nestled into the tree-line so that they cause minimal disturbance to the landscape. The rooms have open fronts to allow for constant breath-taking views of the diverse scenery, with canvas curtains to allow for privacy. Each room features a verandah for sitting out and enjoying the views, as well as a scenic upstairs lounge area for relaxing. Guests can choose between twin or double beds, which are tucked away behind a canopied net. The room’s dressing area leads to an en-suite bathroom with a flush toilet, vanity and shower. Hot water is available on-demand and is heated by a lit boiler.

Guests can enjoy 3 delicious meals a day, around the communal table in the main lodge. This gives guests the opportunity to connect and enjoy conversation over dinner. Start the day with a light breakfast of fresh fruits and a selection of cereals. Hot food is available to order from the lodge’s kitchen and can be cooked to your preferences. After your first activity of the day, a lunch buffet with a selection of tasty options including pizza, roasted vegetables and cold salad will await you.

Indulge in a sundowner beverage in the evenings as the sky takes on a vibrant hue, and the lake’s waters blaze with colour, before the stars begin to emerge and a three-course dinner is served. Finish off the day with a sweet dessert and pleasant conversation with your fellow guests as you swap stories about chimpanzee treks and lounging by the lake.

Enjoy a trek into the forests with an expert guide and search for the wild chimpanzees that reside with the forests of the Mahale Mountains. Search through the jungle, following the calls and sounds of the monkeys for around an hour, before finding scores of primates. Sit quietly on the forest floor and watch the chimpanzees as they go through their daily routines. Watch the gestures and expressions that show hidden conversations between the chimpanzees and learn to recognise their different relationships and moods through observing their behaviour. This unique opportunity to watch the chimpanzees interact and play is truly incredible. Greystoke Mahale offers 1 chimp trek every day, and if guests are lucky enough to see chimpanzees, you will be able to spend 1 hour with them.

Lake Tanganyika offers guests a number of refreshing activities in its cooling waters including swimming in the mountain’s waterfall pools, kayaking at sunrise, and watching for paddling hippos. Guests can go for sundowner cocktails on the lodge’s wooden dhow and explore the shore from the water, searching for fish and aquatic life.

Explore the forests that sprawl along the base of the Mahale mountain range and learn about the flowers, shrubs and trees that fill this sub-tropical haven. Look out for the many birds, insects and animals that lurk within the trees – including eight other species of monkey other than chimpanzees. Walks along the forest trails allow guests to explore the natural environment at their own pace.

Visit the local Tanganyika Village and meet the children at the Katumbi primary school which was built and furnished by the Nomad Trust. Visit the new classrooms, powered by solar, and see how they have transformed the lives of the students. Guests can also take a trip to the community clinic, where Nomad funds healthcare such as first aid and midwifery.

Serengeti Safari Camp is a Nomad Tanzania camp. Nomad utilises planes, cars, camps and their teams in order to offer aid to the more remote and isolated regions of Tanzania and provide educational support. Nomad donates safari to auctions in order to raise money for these projects. Nomad’s educational support includes investing in nursery centres and meal programmes to provide children with an education as early as possible, and the nutrition to get them through the school day. Nomad also funds scholarships for gifted children and provides internships within their camps. This gives youth a chance to learn about the tourism industry and how they could forge a career here. Additionally, Nomad works with partners who support education programmes that centre around sustainability and conservation.

The Nomad Tanzania Trust also provides support to medical facilities so that they can reach remote people in need. Nomad has partnered with The Plaster House in Arusha, a facility that offers corrective, orthopaedic, plastic surgery, neurosurgery and post-op care to children with disfigurements. This means that children can get the care they need and prevents them from being hidden by their families.

Nomad also provides medicines, vaccinations, and mosquito nets for village clinics so that they can support the local communities. Additionally, they run health education and awareness campaigns and projects so that communities can learn basic health protocols and protect themselves from common and preventable illnesses. This includes teaching the community about sanitation, safe water, and pregnancy and child care.

Nomad Tanzania sources local ingredients and materials and employs local people to invest in the communities in which they operate. This supports the local economy and provides an income for the families that live alongside Nomad’s camps.

‘Biashara means ‘business’ in Swahili and how we conduct our business in Tanzania is a huge part of what makes Nomad the company it is today. From inception, our founders have always believed in investing in local communities and providing opportunities for both our staff, and the wider community. From the way our camps are built and where we source and purchase our interiors, to our microfinance model that is unique within our industry, we wholeheartedly commit to making sure that the impact Nomad has on the lives of people is transformative.’

The Watato Go Wild programme seeks to welcome local Tanzanian school children into various Nomad camps to identify high performing students and provide them with future career prospects by imparting first-hand skills and knowledge of the tourism industry. Collaborating with local schools, children can broaden their horizons by partaking in wildlife lessons and workshops, headed by experienced Nomad guides while embarking on safari game drives.

In the Beds for Meds initiative, Nomad staff actively search for spaces within camps, or an empty safari vehicle and guide, and use any available resources to organise a medical outreach clinic for neighbouring communities. Working with health professionals from hospitals in Arusha and beyond, citizens of all ages from neighbouring villages are brought into camp to receive medical treatments. This initiative helps to fill the gaps in health services in remote communities. Camp teams are requested to remain vigilant, and upon finding individuals in need of plastic surgery or other specialised cases, they are put on planes to get the treatment they need from programme partners in Arusha.

Community training workshops are actively run in neighbouring communities, focusing on relevant eco-friendly activities that can help families become more self-reliant and secure by diversifying their income options. Employment opportunities in villages bordering National Parks can often be quite limited, causing many communities to live off the land with few other available prospects, despite the risks and challenges. These workshops seek to educate, encourage and equip communities to be able to engage in ventures more financially sustainable, while promoting ecologically friendly land practices.

Numerous Mogumu Hope Centres are based in the villages that border the Serengeti National Park, offering refuge to young girls fleeing from female genital mutilation (FGM). Although FGM is illegal in Tanzania, it is sadly still practised in some rural villages. The centre works to ultimately reunite the girls with their parents on the agreement they will not be at risk of FGM or early child marriage, as well as raising community awareness, changing minds, and standing up for girl’s rights.

Nomad Tanzania works to protect the wildlife and environment from harm. Nomad tackles the threat posed by poachers and illegal bushmeat traders by supporting conservation organisations that monitor wildlife populations and protect these creatures from humans. Many communities face conflict with wildlife, especially when livestock are attacked, threatening the livelihood of local people. Nomad runs campaigns to persuade people to live harmoniously with wildlife and offer training for alternative sources of income to livestock agriculture, such as beekeeping and composting projects which both benefit the environment.

Nomad Tanzania runs a number of village clean-up projects in the villages that lie close to their camps and border the National Parks, gathering large groups of volunteers including football teams, schoolchildren and fishermen to help pick up rubbish and keep the villages clean. After this, rubbish is sorted and appropriately disposed of. Nomad also runs village film nights that display documentaries focusing on the challenge of waste disposal and the issues posed by waste plastic. These films educate the local communities and help to persuade people to keep the villages and surrounding areas clean and plastic-free. Nomad limits the amount of plastic used in their camps as much as possible to reduce the amount of waste plastic produced.

In the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, the Maasai have lived alongside wildlife for decades, but as human populations increase, conflicts and pressure inevitably mount, sadly resulting in the decline of local lion populations. KopeLion is an initiative that seeks to alter this trend by employing former lion hunters and equipping them with the skills needed to actively protect the remaining lions and reduce conflicts with their local communities and villages.

Through the conservation and protection of grasslands, measures can be implemented to ensure healthy herds of wildlife, as well as communities of local Maasai and their livestock, are able to contribute indefinitely to the overall health of the Maasai Steppe ecosystem and Tarangire National Park. The degradation of this delicate ecosystem poses devastating implications for local communities, and as such, the only way to combat this threat is to implement regulatory grazing measures to ensure lands are not left barren.