Colours Africa Tours and Safaris Team
Colours Africa Tours and Safaris
- Office In:
- Size:
- 5-10 employees (Founded in 2019)
- Member Of:
- TANAPA, BRELA & TTP
- Tour Types:
- Custom mid-range & luxury tours that can start every day
- Destinations:
- Price Range:
- $50 to $360 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
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Email Joseph | 20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Communicative, honest, helpful, the best of the best!
We went on a 5 day Safari in late march, 2023
This is the “low season”, so we were able to book our trip 2 weeks ahead of time. We were a little worried about it being low season, expecting potentially less of an experience due to it not being the peak of the great migration, but that couldn’t be farther from the truth!
This was our itinerary:
Day 1: Tarangire day game drive and night game drive
Day 2: drive to Serengeti with stop at uldave gorge
Day 3: Serengeti day game drive
Day 4: ngorogoro crater game drive and walking Safari (hike around the crater rim)
Day 5: coffee tour and materuni waterfall hike
Our guide was Ben, a local from Arusha that has many years of experience doing safaris, and it shows! During every game drive, Ben was working hard to ensure we got the best experiences. He constantly communicated with other guides in the park to find all the good stuff and looked himself with his binoculars to find hidden gems. It wasn’t rare for Ben to use his eagle eyes to see a rhino or a simba out in the field! Because of this, we got to see “The Big 5”, including a leopard sleeping in a tree, about 6 rhinos, many lion prides, many Buffalo, and lots of elephants! It is hard to pick a favorite game drive experience, as they were all unique. After each game drive, we got to sit down at dinner and game plan for the next day. Since it was not peak season, the lodges were fairly empty and it gave us a great opportunity to get to know our guide better. It was great getting to learn more about the culture and lifestyle in Tanzania!
I will leave out the details of my game drives here as I think many others have expressed how amazing it is. Instead I’ll talk about a few unique parts of our experience.
The coffee experience in materuni waterfalls was a unique part of our trip that we requested. We were able to do this because we did a private Safari (just me and my wife) so our schedules were not dependent on others. The day started in the materuni area at a chagga village. The chagga people were very welcoming and accommodating, and they showed us everything from their coffee bean plants, adjacent fruit farms, how to remove the coffee bean shell, roasting the beans, grinding beans, making the coffee, and ultimately drinking it! Let me note that there are not any modern tools to help in this process, it is very traditional and requires a little bit of elbow grease! And the coffee was delicious, we bought 3 bags to take home and share with our family! After coffee, we went on a hike. The hike was not long, but it was steep. My wife and I enjoy hiking, and were definitely challenged a bit! But I think if you are able to do a few steep hills for a mile or two, you will be okay. The view once you get to the waterfalls makes it all worth it. After returning to the village, we ate lunch. It was by far my favorite lunch. Delicious banana soup with local spices, rice, beans, beef, and potatoes with banana “sauce”. The banana items do not taste like American banana, just delicious food I’ve never tasted before. If you love coffee, do not pass this experience up!
Overall, the pros were that the experiences were second to none. Day 1 was absolutely amazing and I didn’t think it could be beat, but day 2, 3, 4, and 5 offered equal or greater experiences.
Cons, it’s difficult to think of any cons! The lodges are absolutely amazing, but we had very little downtime and didn’t get to enjoy them that much. If you want to spend downtime at the lodges, I recommend not doing multiple things each day, or booking a longer safari so that your schedule isn’t as packed as ours was. We loved being on the go the entire time (and we didn’t have the time unfortunately to extend our safari a few more days), but we’re fairly young and I can imagine that our schedule may have been too busy for an older couple or travelers that expect more of a laid-back trip.
General notes. It was pretty easy to find electricity, either in the Safari vehicle or in our hotels. We needed to get a converter than changed the 250 V to 100 V (I think) that had a type G plug adapter. It worked fine but my iPhone lightning cable shocked me a few times and my iPhone got hot randomly, leading me to believe that there was too much amperage coming through. Because of this, I almost exclusively used the USB-A jacks which output lower amps. This was due to the crappy converter we bought from Amazon, so I recommend buying one that you can depend on because we were worried the entire trip that our converter would stop working at some point. In terms of other cameras, I bought a canon rebel the night before our trip with two lenses. I found myself learning the camera during the trip, and was very comfortable with it by mid day 1. I learned the hard way that pictures at night are hard if not impossible without the right equipment so if you plan on doing a night safari I would practice night pictures a bit before you go!Toilets were surprisingly very clean. Only place where I had to use squat toilets was in materuni, and the toilets in ngorogoro were maybe a little dirty but still way above my expectations. Our trip included pickup and drop off at the airport.
Overall, I would recommend a Safari with colors of Africa to anyone and everyone! Ben was the absolute best and went above and beyond to make our trip a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Support your local Safari guides!
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Email Laura C. | 35-50 years of age | Experience level: first safari
This was sooo worth it!!
I booked a safari with Colours Africa Tours and it was an amazing experience!! They are incredibly organized and thoughtful and they were able to accommodate all my needs. As a solo female traveler, I felt completely comfortable traveling with them. Their guides were knowledgeable and kind, particularly Omary on the Kilimanjaro hike! I was so happy with my decision to book with Colours Africa!
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Email Hugo | 35-50 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Exceeded expectations! Highly recommended Tour Guides
In a word - Awesome! The support team went above and beyond to make our trip a success and enjoyable. My friends and I enjoyed it more than we could have ever imagined. At times it was challenging, but with acclimation hikes, vital signs monitoring twice a day, ensuring we were eating and drinking properly, we knew we were in good hands. The guides Michael and Emmanuel and the rest of the team were attentive to all our needs before we even asked. And having Chef Tuesday running the kitchen was as a special treat, always making sure to make great dishes and other snacks, tea, coffee and more. They even made a birthday cake for my friend Salva's birthday :) The team provided knowledge, wisdom, caring, dedication, entertainment, and love. We left Tanzania feeling like we left behind family. A five star rating isn't enough to rate the great experience we had between March 7-14, 2023. Thanks to the entire team who did a great job! Highly recommended for your next Kilimanjaro trek
Email Richard Volf | 35-50 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Always caring
I opted for 5 days, 4 nights budget safari. An amazing experience.
From minute one we've had the best guide possible in Joseph, whose encyclopaedic knowledge was ensless. As was his patience. He can also spot any animal from far far away.
Special thanks to Godlisten as well.
Need also to mention the food. Really really good. Freshly cooked all the time, three meals a day, marvelous quality. The chefs done great!!
Two nights in tents in savannah highly recommended. You can hear a range of animals, and if you're lucky like me even hear a buffalo eating grass...
Can only recommend Colours Africa!! Far exceeded all my expectations.
FR
Email A happy and conquered French couple | 20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
The BEST of the best safari
A unique, wonderful, incredible experience.
everything went as smoothly as possible, that is to say very simply and perfectly.
Since the first day when, with my wife, we contacted Colors Africa Tours and safaris.
Hamis is a great person, available, serious, rigorous, he answers everything, even your simplest questions.
Everything went as we hoped, everything was organized, planned ahead mainly via whatsapp.
The safari was incredible, thanks to our wonderful French-speaking guide Emmanuel and our driver Godlissen we saw thousands of animals during this safari,
they stopped at nothing to offer us the best points of view, they know where to go
find the rarest animals. Emmanuel, our French-speaking guide was a remarkable guide with his great knowledge and knowledge of animals, anecdotes and the history of his country and landscapes. He had answered everything. Godlissen, our experienced and very safe driver, ready to do anything to make us live an unforgettable experience. both were very professional and unquantifiable kindness.
Thanks to you and the whole team of Colors Africa Tours and Safaris,
you are the best.
I would recommend you without hesitation to my family and friends.
Thanks again !!
Email Scott | 20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Amazing experience
This was our first time going to Africa, or on safari, and there were so many companies to choose from. We ended up choosing Colours Africa because we felt they were best responding to our questions. This turned out to be a great decision as honestly I can't fault them at all!
The safari was an amazing experience and all of the staff from Colours Africa were great. Obviously it's all about seeing the animals and our driver Benjamin was just incredible. His eyesight was something else, often seeing things while driving that we would then struggle to find with binoculars!
Our chef Suleiman was super friendly and we had hot meals for breakfast, lunch and dinner every day which were all really tasty.
One of our group was ill and we missed the first day. The owners came down to our hotel themselves to check how he was doing and arranged for us to catch up the next day.
Hopefully I have the chance to visit Tanzania again some day and I wouldn't think twice about booking with Colours Africa again.
FR
Email Romain Maison | 20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Amazing Safari & experience
We traveled to Tanzania for our Honeymoon.
I got in touch with many tour operators ahead of it.
All communications with Colours Africa Tours & Safaris were great (very responsive) and they gave me very good advices.
I went ahead with them and our experience was even better than expected.
Everybody was very friendly, doing their best to make this trip one the best of our life and it was thanks to them.
I can only recommend them 150%.
On top I think this is very great to help small companies like Color's Africa and Safaris compare to the big operators - you will feel very special and not a clients among others.
Thanks again to Hamid & all his team and to our guide Lucas.
Email Kostas | 20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Excellent in communication, customer service and overall satisfaction.
As a small group of three, we had been planning on going on a safari for about six months. We hadn’t done anything similar in the past and we were nervous about how to go about planning the excursion as well as the smaller day-to-day details. We did not want a deluxe safari so we aimed for a medium to low budget one instead. We went for the four-day option.
We contacted three separate companies (all registered with SafariBookings) and Colours Africa were the first ones to respond, almost immediately. They provided us with an itinerary illustrating the main locations and a daily breakdown of the whole trip. After discussing it as a group, we had tens of questions; from accommodation for the night before the safari, transportation, types of food available on the excursion, length of journey to the key areas, clothing, the camping sites and the lodges, the number of people the vehicles could fit and everything else in-between. Our main contact was Hamis, who replied promptly to all our questions even on weekends and sometimes very late at night.
On the actual safari, our driver and guide was Benjamin and our chef was Suleiman. The first had this amazing ability to spot animals hiding from (literally) a mile away while we were trying to spot them with binoculars. He knew the best places to view the animals and always listened to our requests, be it to stay at a spot longer to take photos or to explain certain animal behaviours.
I had the misfortune of being unwell for the first couple of days of the safari, having had an upset stomach from the flight to Tanzania. Suleiman (Sully) was aware and always took the time to cook a different meal for me so as not to upset my stomach any further. There were times when I could not resist his delicious cooking and tried a little of everything on the table. We were spoiled for choice. There was always a meat and a vegetarian dish, a carbohydrate as a side, salad and dessert both for lunch and for dinner. Breakfast was equally as appetizing and always included pancakes (crepes) which turned out to be the group’s go-to. Besides that, there was bread, coffee, tea, milk and juice.
Hamis visited us at the hotel the day before the safari to greet us and brief us on the details. He also came and visited me with Gotlisten, his business partner, to see how I was feeling after missing the first day of the safari due to my illness. The latter came to see us as a group upon our return to make sure we were satisfied and address any concerns or issues we may have had.
The overall experience (even for unwell me) was amazing and I would 100% do it again, maybe during the rainy season this time.
We went for Colours Africa mainly because of their pricing, flexibility, friendliness, promptness and speed in communication.
Email Anna | 20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Beyond expectations
Me and my friend are 100% satisfied. We would book a guided tour with this company again. They were really helpful with everything we needed! My friend's luggage was lost at the airport and they did what they could to assist, they even drove in the middle of the night to bring it back to us. Our guide, Aron, was amazing. He knew everything about wild animals and landscape, his eyes could spot a black rhino from unbelievable distance. Colours Africa was really a great surprise. 100% recommended!
Excellent in many ways.
I don't even know where to start! From the moment I messaged them and requested a quote they answered every single question I had, the costumer service starts months ago when you're probably wondering many things about this trip. Don't worry, they will answer even those silly questions that pop out a month after your initial conversation. I decided to book it and it was the most amazing experience I've had in my life. Not only you go on safaris with an amazing guide (we got Stanley) but you also get a chef that deserved a 11/10 in the cooking. All meals were amazing (I overate every single day). Very important to note that camping may not be for everyone, do your research and if you decide that you'll do it, be ready to have an amazing experience. Once again, thank you guys for being so awesome from day 1! I can't recommend you enough!