Red Africa Safaris Team
Red Africa Safaris
- Office In:
- Size:
- 1-5 employees (Founded in 2012)
- Member Of:
- SATSA, FGASA, SATIB & LEDET
- Tour Types:
- Custom mid-range tours that can start every day
- Destinations:
- Price Range:
- $146 to $580 per person per day (USD, excl. int'l flights)
for a custom tour
Your request will be sent directly to the operator
If preferred, you can contact the operator directly
Reviews
BY
Email Tania | 20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
A mixed experience
We opted for a 5 days private reserve tour + Panorama route with RedAfrica.
Overall, we have to highlight that it was very pleasant to spend time in Jaco’s company: he is a highly dedicated and motivated person eager to do his best to share his passion of nature and his knowledge. We greatly enjoyed our exchanges with him throughout the trip and his respectful attitude towards us.
The first part of our tour – the gorgeous landscapes that we saw along the Panorama route – was just great.
However, the private reserve part of the tour was unfortunately disappointing: the area, which was described as located in the Greater Kruger ecosystem and thus hosting the same animal and bird species, was highly affected by the recent draught, which forced the animals to migrate elsewhere; a factor which we were not aware of prior to our trip. During our stay in the private reserve, we thus saw extremely few animals. Moreover, the information and time management by the reserve staff was not entirely satisfying, which added to our overall frustration.
Afraid of leaving Kruger disappointed, we requested Jaco to change the plan for the last day of our trip and spend it in Kruger proper instead of the private reserve. Luckily, Jaco was flexible and accepted this last minute change. This last day trip (although a rushed one) enabled us to see almost all of the Big Five in one day and somehow compensated for the frustration related to the impossibility to see animals during the previous days.
Reply from Red Africa Safaris
Posted on Apr 29, 2016This Private reserve is in the Greater Kruger Park which is situated on the banks of the Elephants River, where we normally have great sightings, we were there with other clients 3 days before this trip who had excellent sightings from which we received a very good review (like all our other reviews). We’ve had unpredictably late summer rains here in South Africa at the time which caused the animals to hide from the wind and rain and in turn caused less than normal sightings. These animals are truly wild and freely moving in the Greater Kruger Park causing unpredictable sightings.
The river came down in full flood the previous evening that forced the lodge management to postpone the scheduled river safari to the next day due to safety reasons, we had to then do a bushwalk which started a little later than usual as this was unplanned. Unfortunately the walk was also cut short by 10 minutes due to heavy rain, causing poor visibility and a safety risk.
Unfortunately we have no control over nature and it's effects that from time to time causes less sightings because animals will hide from wind and rain and they move freely in the greatest wilderness area in Southern Africa. We and whichever lodge we use at the time may change the itinerary if needed due to safety reasons or changing weather conditions.
We wish all of our clients a good experience and feel sorry if it's not the case, we cannot control nature even if we sometimes wish we can. Video testimonials on our website can testify of the great experiences pervious clients had at this specific lodge.