Gorillas Homeland Safaris

complete disaster

Dear safari lovers and all who are planning holidays in East Africa with the assistance of Gorillas Homeland Safaris. It is pretty likely you will pick this tour company as they have a very nice website, perfect ratings, its manager Mr. Davis Tukamushaba has several FB profiles all packed with only positive comments, and he is very quick in replying to potential customers’ inquiries. All this creates a great first impression.
A month ago we returned from our 8-day safari in Rwanda and Uganda organized by Davis and his team. Wherein the word „organized” is a big exaggeration, as in terms of organizing our trip was a complete disaster.
It all started on the first night. After having landed at the Kigali airport around midnight we found that no one was waiting for us. When we, at last, reached the hotel we learned that Mr. Tukamushaba “had forgotten” to book our stay. In the following days it was only worse. Our personal guide who was to accompany us during the whole trip was late for the first meeting by 6 hours. Despite Mr. Tukamushaba’s claim that all our accommodations and entrances to the national parks had been already paid (in fact we had paid 70 percent of the whole trip in advance ) - ever and again it turned out that something was not paid or even booked. Eventually Davis would always pay – on short notice - only when we started the alarm on Messenger. A critical moment was on the day when we were driving 10 hours to the Nyungwe Forest National Park in the south of Rwanda for chimpanzee tracking only to learn that our names are not on the list. This time nothing could be done since all had already been booked. We missed the chimpanzee tracking, which was supposed to be one of the highlights. In the long run Davis returned us the money for the chimpanzees but it didn’t really comfort us. For eight days Davis Tukamushaba - who was in touch with us on the phone - kept on making up extraordinary stories about exceptional misunderstandings and unbelievable coincidences which resulted in this series of fuckups. Instead of relaxing we were stressed every night.
We decided not to keep this story for ourselves. We feel obliged to share it because of the tourists’ solidarity. My friend Izabela is a PR Manager at an American company, I am a journalist and a non-fiction writer. You’ll find us on Facebook, feel free to contact us if you want to learn more details.
Our unpleasant experience does not change the fact that Rwanda and Uganda are beautiful and fascinating countries. You will meet there many professional and kind people. Simply you’d better think twice before you go there with Gorillas Homeland ​Safaris.
Katarzyna Surmiak-Domańska and Izabela Szumielewicz