Shamwari has changed a lot, very much for the better, since I was last there in 1998.
Long Lee Manor in Shamwari is a luxurious lodge with excellent facilities and very friendly staff. Shamwari Reserve itself is around 25k hectares now and perhaps double the size since we were there last, in 1998. Wild cats are now free in the reserve; they weren't in 1998. The quantity of game to be seen, very often with only our vehicle present, was superb, both large and small (the jackal pups? cubs? we saw beside their den were entrancing); elephants were to be seen frequently, and close up without being hassled and unconcerned by our presence. We were also lucky enought to see a pair of cheetah brothers make a kill, again very close, and on another occasion an unbothered leopard came out of a thicket and went round our vehicle before going back into another thicket. Our ranger was very alert to what we wanted to see, and while radio communication with other rangers back and forth could sometimes be intrusive, I guess it was necessary to locate where particular groups of animals were to be found. I suppose the big surprise was the number of rhino to be seen, including a few black rhino, though rhino are not my favourite species. We were there for four nights, but still didn't cover all the ground - which is very varied from open plains to bush to wooded valleys. Getting up at 5 a.m. every day is tiring but very much worth it(!) though on reflection and from my notes (I kept a daily diary) I think we saw more in the afternoon/early evening drives. Although there are another four or five lodges on the property, we did not often see other vehicles out on drives, and being a private reserve there were no local tourist vehicles as there are, say, in the Kruger. One final point - Shamwari has a tie up with the Born Free Foundation and their visitor centre in the reserve is well worth a visit.
20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Very efficient and responsible
Terminal tours was a good choice for an African safari. The tour organisers were quick to arrange the tour in short notice. The driver was a nice guy who also gave good information on the way about the geography such as rift valley and also was expert to take us to right spots for the animals to be seen closely and also explained a bit about them. The food was served well on our way to masai mara and as well as at the camp. It was good to meet many friendly people even though I made a solo trip. Overall the safari was up to my expectations and am driven to book with them in future for a bigger safari.
GR
35-50 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Excellent Service, Good Planning, Responsive Attitude
After many emails to different companies we finally chose to organise our safari in Tanzania with Zohar.
Our decision was primarily based on the responsiveness of Lilian (the main coordinator at Zohar) who provided us with clear answers to all our questions and good advise, showing flexibility and willingness to cover our needs.
We wanted to fully utilise our time around the safari attractions, and LIlian was able to craft what proved to be a very good schedule for our needs - meaning the right mix of travelling times, lodgings, variety of scenery, maximising animal encounters, blended with experiencing the local culture.
From te moment we stepped out of the airport until our departure we felt we were well taken care of. Lilian met with us upon our arrival at Arusha on our first evening and gave us a short briefing, and was monitoring our every step through communication with our guide.
Here are some words about our safari...
First of all, our guide Tom was wonderful: all our family loved him! He was always polite, warm and approachable but at the same time respectful to our personal family time. He was punctual and proper, the car always clean, his driving safe but not slow. His english was excellent (we had no probelms in communicating), always explaining things and answering all our questions, with many interesting stories to share. Tom tried his best to please us, looking for the best opportunities to see the animals around, fitting the daily timetable after discussions and according to our needs. Tom was a cornerstone of our enjoyable safari.
Lilian's planning was very good. Firstly, the descriptions that she shared with us were a useful basis for planning and proved accurate in practise. We enjoyed the variety in the itinerary that allowed us to see rather alot in the time we had available.
All accommodation was very good (according to the descriptions and prices) and it was the right decision to change accommodation every night as this allowed us to have different scenery every day (and night).
Our stay at the tented camps (Kati Kati camps in two locations) was a unique experience for us (although especially my wife missed some comforts like a hair-dryer!). We really enjoyed the scenery and hearing the night-life of animals around us. I think that the two nights was just right (long enough to experience, but not too long to get tired).
We ended our safari with a higher quality lodge that Lilian proposed - a good ending to a great trip!
We very much enjoyed our visits to the villages and our interactions with the local communities. Our visit to Mto wa Mbu village was very interesting and well worth the time there. The visit was well organised, the time we spent there was informational and entertaining, it gave us the chance to experience parts of the local life and atmosphere. So a very nice highlight to our trip. (TIP: bring some small gifts for the children - e.g. pens, candy, simple toys - we had deflated balls and a pump... very well received with big smiles and hugs by the children).
We had a stop at a Masai village on the way back from Ndutu to Karatu. As you see many of the Masai around the main roads, we were excited to visit them at their home. The Masai were extremely friendly, opened up their village for us, and explained all the details of their culture and way of life. We were greeted by the son of the village chief who spoke decent english. Well worth the stop, and another type of experience compared to Mto wa Mbu. (TIP: save some of the gifts for the Masai !). The choice of Masai village was made on the spot as many of these villages offer an open door policy for tourists (US$ 50 for our family and an expectation to purchase some of their handicraft).
Our visits to the parks was the main highlight. Lilian's suggestion to see the different parks was right.
Starting with Lake Manyara was a good warm-up, very conveniently located on the way to Karatu, and with different life compared to what followed.
Then the Serengeti was as magical as we expected.
The environment around Ndutu was different to Serengeti and interesting to see this difference - but animal life there was less dense compared to the main Serengeti (say around Serengeti's Seronera river).
Finally Ngorongoro was another magical and unique place...
In all the areas we enjoyed the variety of scenery and animal life.
To wrap up - this was a fantastic trip for our family.
After the safari we spent another week in Zanzibar, but the main images and experinces that are spinning around our heads are from the north part of Tanzania: the scenery, animals and people around Serengeti and Ngorongoro.
Thank you Zohar!
US
35-50 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Good organised and helpfull safari company
Our recent holidays in Tanzania was really fabulous. Altezza did an excellent job of arranging our trip. Altezza took care of all accommodations, note all what we asked before, organized all local transports around the trip. They were attentive to detail, helpful, and organised. The guide was incredibly knowledgeable and patient. He went out of his way for us and we would not have had nearly such a good trip without him. He was especially kind to our children. All of the parks included in our trip (Ngorongoro, Serengeti, Tarangire) were wonderful. We would definitely recommend using Altezza if you're thinking of visiting Tanzania!
50-65 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
my 4th safari with Altezza
We had a great experience with Altezza. We are working with them more than 3 years.The booking and payment were very easy. Always safari-guide was very friendly and very helpful. Good organization and service. Just recommend Altezza for all
IT
35-50 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Great work, Altezza!
You deserve the 5 stars: very good communications and service. The safari was well organized and the accommodations (Sopa Lodge, Simba Karatu) were varied and all very nice. Our guide, Abu, was not only a very good driver, a good guide who could tell us many things about the beauty of Tanzania, but also an inspiring man. My visit with my children had a great success partly of good organization and service of Altezza. They even gave us free tips about our stay in Zanzibar. I should say: "It was really Great!"
US
35-50 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Good to know that these people actually exist
The bottom line: this is a glowing review of a longer than average trip (38 days) that was thoughtfully planned, meticulously arranged, and expertly executed. I have attempted to write the review I wanted to read when I was researching this. That is, one that contains information allowing me to relate our situation and desires to the experience of the reviewer so that we could make an educated decision. I’ve tried to break it into separate digestible pieces, so you can skip around to our thoughts on the company itself, our experience, our situation, etc. as you like. The information below was gathered from tour operators (this company and others), guides, lodge employees, local residents, and fellow travelers.
About us:
My fiancé and I are both 30-something, fairly active professionals (students until quite recently) who were lucky enough to get time away from work for a long trip. We enjoy outdoor pursuits, good food, and wildlife and are comfortable with a range of levels of luxury (i.e. camping to five stars). We are relatively well traveled and started out thinking that we would do much of this on our own. After a good amount of research we eventually concluded that doing East Africa on our own would likely lead to an inferior trip at a higher cost in terms of both time and money. That was absolutely the right conclusion in retrospect. We were after experiences rather than pampered luxury. We would prefer comfortable camping in the middle of the national park to the posh luxury lodge isolated from its surroundings by walls, fences, etc. As it turns out, you can’t stay in the middle of many of the national parks in East Africa without stepping up to some (rather high) level of luxury so we ended up staying in fairly nice places that were well worth the experience. We wanted a private journey, just us and a driver/guide. We weren’t sure we could afford it, but in retrospect it was well worth the relatively small additional cost. If we had a couple of friends that we knew well, it would have been OK to have them along, but I wouldn’t have wanted to spend hours on safari with strangers who have different interests and priorities. It’s just not the same trip. In very broad strokes, I would describe us as relaxed but discerning travelers.
Our trip:
A very brief version of our itinerary:
Kenya - Masai Mara, Lake Naivasha, Lake Nakuru, Amboseli
Tanzania – Kilimanjaro hike, Tarangire, Lake Manyara, Ngorongoro, Serengeti
Uganda – Kibale, Queen Elizabeth, Bwindi, Jinja
Zanzibar, Mafia islands
What stood out most to us about the logistics of our trip was the incredible amount of research that went into planning it. They had quite obviously been to every place they sent us, and had a discerning eye for the variables which would make the experience pleasant. It wasn’t just that they placed us at a comfortable place near to what we came to see or do. It was that they placed us at the comfortable place with the English speaking manager and the good food and nice rooms in quiet and beautiful surroundings that was near what we had come for. The level of thought and consideration for what the trip would actually be like as a whole was very impressive. Other companies who sold “customized” journeys seemed to be selling some combination of modular experiences. Something along the lines of: “combine the Tarangire module with the Ngorongoro module and the Serengeti module” where each module is a self-contained unit of a specific lodge and experience. Not so with E-trip. They listened to what we wanted, asked questions to clarify, and then gave us experiences and lodging that suited us. We weren’t tied to something simply because the tour company had pre-arranged itineraries or agreements with particular places. It was a truly customized journey, designed for us by people who took the time understand what we valued. I think much of this is a product of the fact that they live in Tanzania and are very plugged into the culture and economics of the area.
After the planning was all done and we started our trip, I had expected that there would be bumps in the road. It seemed impossible to me that we could spend nearly 40 days traveling by car, boat, and plane across three countries and countless language and cultural barriers without something getting dropped somewhere along the line. Nope, it was all to plan without a hitch. I’m still dumb founded by it. As an example, it was day 30 something of the trip and we had driven from the east coast to the west coast of Zanzibar to take a tour of Stone Town before our flight out to Mafia. The detailed itinerary we were given more than four weeks prior said there would be a driver to take us to the airport at noon. After we met up with our tour guide and walked around Stone Town for a few hours, we returned to where we had met our guide to find a driver whom we had never met waiting for us. We hadn’t called him, our guide hadn’t called him, he was just there. It’s quite likely that he had received at least one phone call from E-trip in the day or so preceding our arranged meet, but at the time it seemed like logistical wizardry. Thirty something days into a trip and the guy is just sitting there waiting for us 10 minutes before we were supposed to be there. What’s more is we had come to expect this kind of treatment. It’s hard to overstate the value of being able to relax into the journey knowing that someone skillful has taken care of every little detail and you really don’t have to spend one second of your time in Africa thinking about how to get things done. Looking back at the itinerary, the driver’s phone number was on our itinerary along with phone numbers for every lodge, driver, etc. during the trip just in case, but we never needed them. That’s how well it was planned. I think it would be extremely difficult to plan a 40 day journey around my home town without something going wrong, and these guys did it across three countries in Africa which speaks volumes about how tight of a ship they run.
The company –
They are run by a husband and wife team (American and French ex-pats) who live in Tanzania with their young son and are intimately involved in making sure things go well. They both have a long history of trying to make this world a better place and of doing so in Africa specifically (peace corps, etc.). As a result, they are very knowledgeable about the geographic, social, and political climate in the areas they work. This sets them apart from the vast majority of other companies who will tell you that they operate locally, but in actuality they charge you what they will, take their cut, and then outsource your trip to somebody on the ground in Africa. The locally owned companies we came across seemed to do OK, but it’s not the same as someone who understands western culture but lives the day to day in Africa. There just isn’t a substitute for that combination. If you have a problem, and somebody has to call somebody on another continent to try to fix it, it’s not likely to go as well as if you hop on the cell phone provided to you at the start of the trip and call the owner of the company.
It has been my experience in the past, that people who have a heart and strive to lift the world around them are not necessarily the most business savvy. That is absolutely not the case with these two. They are quite business savvy; they understand the expectations of western tourists, and embrace the accountability which that requires. They do business in an incredibly responsible and transparent manner which allows you to make value judgments about your experience ahead of time and to feel as though you’ve contributed to making things better in Africa afterward. It became clear when we were researching that companies charge a premium for the service of arranging a trip for you (which is reasonable), but will not detail the costs associated with that service or even the individual portions of the trip like the price of a particular lodge. That makes it very difficult to make value judgments about what things are really worth to you. These guys took the time to answer our emails thoughtfully, to discuss things over the phone in great detail (via skype), and to get an idea of what we wanted not just what we were asking for. At each step they told us what each individual thing would cost so we could talk about what things we really valued. In addition, they don’t own or operate any lodges of their own, so they don’t have any conflicts of interest when it comes to picking a place for you to stay. This is a big deal and one many companies aren’t necessarily forthcoming about.
In the end, the level of research and effort that went into constructing our customized trip was clearly so far beyond the 40 or so other companies that I communicated with, at a lower and transparent cost, that the choice became obvious. I even spoke with a few tour operators who wondered aloud how it was possible to arrange the trip we took at the price we paid – they simply couldn’t do it. Suffice it to say that I think you would be foolish not to at least call/email them to see what they can do for you. Do it and you will see what I mean.
US
20-35 years of age | Experience level: over 5 safaris
Absolutely amazing....normal safaris will no longer be the same!
I did a trip to Zambia/Zimbabwe/Malawi and when I researching my trip, I stumbled upon Natureways. 4 days on a canoe in one of the top national parks in the world??? Sign me up! We opted for the 4 day Tamarind Safari that went from Chirundu to Mana Pools. This involved packing up all of our food, drink, and tents for the 4 days of the trip. I had high expectations for the trip and they were blown out of the water (ha!). We had two canoes with a guide in each. Our guides, Zira and Manny were absolutely amazing. Super professional, highly skilled, and awesome to talk with.
We saw an absolute insane amount of wildlife up very close - there's an advantage of not having a motor to scare away the animals! I made it very clear that I wanted nothing to do with the hippos at the start of my trip, and our guides did an awesome job keeping us far away from them! We saw loads of elephants, crocodiles, hippos, and even saw two lions mating!
Every night we set up camp on islands on the Zambezi and had some of the most amazing food of our entire trip (while camping for 4 days - how is that possible??). It was crazy to see elephants sharing the island with us in the distance! The only negative was that at point the wind really picked up while we were canoeing. Had to paddle against the wind/current for about an hour, but then we pulled over to land and waited for the wind to die down - can't control the weather!
I've done a few other vehicle safaris - including South Luangwa on this trip. Honestly, they just can't compare to doing a safari on a canoe. I've always felt like safaris can be a bit like Disneyland - constantly being surrounded by an army of other cars. Our Natureways trip wasn't like that whatsoever - just the Zambezi, our canoes, and nature. We rarely ran into other people on the river during our trip - felt like we had the river to ourselves and we really 'out there' (which we were!). If you going to be going to Zambia/Zimbabwe, definitely look into doing a canoe safari with Natureways! You won't regret it!
US
35-50 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Amazing tour with the best tour guide. Africa at its best!
Open Africa Safaris handled every aspect of of my Safari with ease and fun.
Anthony (Tonny) was the best tour guide I have ever met. Anthony is personable and funny while sharing knowledge about the parks, mountains, and every animal that you see along the way.
I toured Arusha, Lake Manyara NP, and Ngorongoro crater. The hotels the tour company reserved in Ngorongoro crater are amazing and have the most incredible views that I have every see. Anthony was very informative and we had an amazing time during every part of the journey. Anthony has become a lifelong friend and I can't wait to return to Africa and tour again.
CH
20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Unforgettable experience in the Warm Heart of Africa
I can only recommend the Malawi&Zambia expedition with Africa Wild Truck.
A visit to Malawi, with its beautiful lakeshores and friendly people as well as a safari in the stunning South Luangwa National Park in Zambia are definitely a great choice to get to know the real Africa and to avoid hordes of tourists.
Francesca and Stefano are passionate guides; they have a deep knowledge of the local culture and natural life that they transmit with enthusiasm, intelligence and humour. They have contributed to make my first experience in Africa unique... and it will not be my last one…