My First Night at Gombe
Arrival
I arrived at Gombe National Park on January 11, 1974, a 21-year-old undergraduate about to begin a study of adult male chimpanzees. As I stepped off the water taxi that morning, I had no idea that three extraordinary events had unfolded on consecutive days just before my arrival: one comically absurd, one that nearly cost Jane Goodall her life, and one that would forever change our understanding of chimpanzees.
The trip to Gombe was quite an expedition. I met up with fellow students Grant Heidrich and Kit Morris in Brussels. We flew on a Sabena charter to Dar es Salaam, with an unscheduled stop after midnight in Entebbe, Uganda, during the rule of strongman Idi Amin.
After two sweltering days in Dar es Salaam, a two-day train ride across Tanzania, and a miserable night in Kigoma, we finally boarded a water taxi at the Kigoma dock. We were thrilled and relieved to be on the last leg of our journey: a three-hour ride along the shore of Lake Tanganyika in a crowded boat filled with villagers and their chickens and goats.
Watertaxi on Lake Tanganyika on a stormy day ca. 1974 (photo by Emilie van Zinnicq Bergmann-Riss).
About halfway into the trip, we reached the border of Gombe. Rising steeply from the lake, the mountains and forests were more spectacular than I had imagined. I pictured chimpanzees high in the lush green treetops, silently watching us pass below.
Nyasanga Valley in Gombe National Park during the rainy season.
Eventually, the boat landed on a broad, gravelly beach known as Kasakela. I grabbed my duffel bag and stepped ashore as the water taxi pushed off and continued north. The three of us stood there, taking in our welcoming committee: a group of baboons digging through the sand farther up the beach.
Baboons sort through sand and gravel at the Kasakela beach, 2024.
After a few minutes, a young woman appeared from the tree line and strode toward us.
“What are you guys doing here?!” she exclaimed, in a European accent.
That’s how I first met Emilie van Zinnicq Bergmann, Jane’s administrator from the Netherlands and one of my closest friends ever since. She had been expecting us a couple of days later, and our early arrival had caught her off guard. But she quickly warmed up, ushering us toward a cluster of rustic buildings and introducing us to several of the staff and students.
First Impressions
(to be continued)