We had company for our early start as the pre-dawn call to prayer was broadcast proudly from the next door mosque for Ramadan at 520am. After a plate of fresh fruit we piled into the diminutive taxi and scraped our way downhill through the obstacle course of ruts. After 500m we ditched Charlie, who had forgotten his hoodie, and whilst he ran back get retrieve it we drove on to drop our bags at musical guesthouse number 1. There was a small issue with a road closed barrier and a large roller but nothing that a bit of surupticious tape lifting didn't solve. Having dropped the bags we picked up Charlie, and his hoodie, and continued through town and down to the lakeside where scores of boats bumped against their painters in the grey of early morning.

We were ushered aboard a patchwork boat, who's engine appeared to be in several different locations, but having balanced our way aboard, and with everything stowed, we pushed off to nestle amongst the boats at their moorings. The 20 minutes that followed reminded me fondly of most of our fishing boat launches at Sea Way. Naturally the dilapidated outboard's pull cord was broken, and why they kept bathing the engine block in lake water I don't know but after bumping off numerous other boats during our powerless drift of the harbour the engine was eventually bullied into life and we spluttered northwards to see the chimpanzees of Gombe.

As the sun rose we navigated through the returning fishing fleet comprised of trains of boats manned by huddled figures, wrapped up after a cold night on the lake with only the fish and their lamps for company. We continued to have mechanical issues, and the general tone of the engine suggested we were flogging its few remaining chronically exhausted horses. Spark plugs were changed and cleaned but our 2 boatmen were not short of patience, a feature I fail to recall from my memories of tinkering with outboard engines at Seaway. Eventually the boatmen admitted defeat and we limped into in a busy lake village just a few km up the coast. We came ashore next to the good ship 'Thank You Jesus' which was packed with mizungo spotters but it did produce an equally dubious looking 'machine' from its hold, carried by the captain who sported a fetching array of penguins on his flowing shirt.

With the new engine delicately balanced in place we pushed off and although smaller, it whinnied into life after half a dozen pulls and the enthusiastic 40 pony power engine took us the rest of the way without a hitch as the sun warmed our smiling faces. It would take more than being stranded in a remote section of a huge lake in the middle of a chaotic country to bother us now.

Arriving in Gombe after an hour and a half we disembarked on to the white sand beach and headed to the concrete hut where a portly man, in a hideous shirt, filled in the appropriate paperwork before melting Charlie's credit card. We were introduced to our guide who gave us brief briefing and we set off on foot into the rainforest to find some chimps.

It took at least a km of winding trail for us to work out why the guides dialect was making us chuckle. Not only did he phrase statements in a similar manner to Master Yoda, he also sounded quite like him and finished every sentence with an extra 'eee'. As we walked Yoda gave us a brief history of Jane Goodall's work and showed us some of the relics of her time before suddenly, there in front of us, were 3 chimpanzees.

Having spent the past fortnight spotting animals I was concerned that the chimps would just be another tick in the box, it couldn't have been further from the truth. The group of father, mother and adolescent were absolutely mesmerising and we watched as they groomed each other patiently before wandering off into the vegetation after about 3/4 of an hour. We were all over the moon but Yoda wasn't hanging around and we pushed on into the forest. After only 15 minutes he made a call on the local jungle radio (I.e. He whooped and waited for a reply) and soon we were scrabbling up hill through the dense vines following the echo of another guide's distant whoops.

The climb was sweaty and Charlie nearly impaled himself on his camera lens twice but eventually we were looking into the treetops where 2 mothers carried young babies, and 2 adolescents danced through the upper branches. We settled in and watched them for 20 minutes or so, occasionally catching glimpses of diminutive faces, hands or feet and dodging the rain of fruit stones, seeds and urine which rained down at regular intervals. To our delight the chimps decided to descend and we followed them to a clearing where the two mothers, Gremlin and Gizmo, gave us better views of their precious cargo. We followed them at a distance for a few hundred metres before heading back to park HQ for lunch.

The food was plentiful and, stuffed to the gunnels, we didn't wait around for the post prandial snooze to kick in, instead we followed Yoda to the waterfall. After 5 minutes of uphill slog I was hideously sweaty but resting was not an option. Yoda pointed out various pieces of forest trivia en route but we were focused on getting to the promised sanctuary of cascading water and after half an hours uphill slog Charlie and I were dangling our torsos under the narrow jet of deliciously cool water and it felt fantastic.

We returned to our second set of chimpanzeezees and were treated to another terrestrial wandering but only after spending s very content half hour reclined in the leaf litter gazing up at them sitting contentedly in the canopy. We returned to the beach for a cold beer and a swim, avoiding the water snakes and 'snail disease' before boarding our slender boat and setting off South back to Kigoma. The engine started on the second pull and didn't put a foot wrong.

The sun was sinking off the port beam and having offered a lift to Yoda's brother, we dropped him off at the small village where we had exchanged engines earlier in the day. As we ploughed through the waves, with the sun sinking and the memories of an amazing day fresh on our minds we were all surfing a colossal high as we disembarked in Kigoma, paid the ferrymen and then all piled into an underpowered TukTuk to creep us back to musical hotel number 1.

After a swift shower we ordered supper and during the 90 minute wait we finalised plans with the manager of the hotel. There were a few points to iron out, such as the exchange rate for dollars and how a small boat could use 80 litres of 2-stroke fuel (costing 3000 shillings a litre) in 2 fifteen minute water taxi trips, but otherwise we ate our distinctly average supper and disappeared to our rooms, exhausted but very aware of the potential stresses the coming few days were likely to bring as we headed south into the unknown!