US
35-50 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Incredible 12-day exploration of Madagascar
I thoroughly enjoyed my recent 12-day tour of Madagascar with Matoke Tours. This is the fourth country I've explored with Matoke (the others being Uganda, Rwanda & Ethiopia) and I continue to be pleased with my experience with them. I continue to recommend them to friends and colleagues, all of whom have been very happy with their Matoke experiences.
In each country, I have worked with someone different at Matoke (the staff has country-specific expertise) but the level of customer service has not changed. For a variety of reasons, my trip to Madagascar required several major changes - including shifting the trip from a December timeframe to one in March - and Coen, at Matoke, made those changes so easy. I really appreciated his flexibility in moving things around to accommodate my changing needs. Madagascar was also the first solo trip I've taken with Matoke and I was so fortunate to be matched with an incredible guide, Tojo, who really made the trip. He was so good-natured, easy company, knowledgable, funny, and kind. I learned an enormous amount about Madagascar from Tojo in a short period of time. I highly recommend him as a guide for all travelers, whether solo, families, couples, groups, etc.
Madagascar has amazing wildlife and nature. I was lucky enough to see seven different species of lemurs and many chameleons, thanks to the great guides Matoke hired for me in both Ranomafana and Isalo National Park. The overall beauty of the country is breathtaking. I never tired of watching the landscapes change from the window of the van and marveled at the city and village scenes that we both walked and drove through.
The accommodations in Madagascar were more simple than what I had in Uganda and Rwanda, but Matoke successfully managed my expectations about the level of accommodations during the planning stages. I had a very clear idea of what to expect before I arrived. Every place I stayed was absolutely fine - safe, clean, friendly staff, good food - but were not luxurious (with the exception of one more upscale place - Jardin du Roy). Some were in beautiful settings but slightly out of town, making it less easy to do an impromptu walk through town. And you have to be prepared to not have electricity in many places during the night, which can mean some warm evenings.
My Madagascar itinerary was a good mixture of cities, rainforests, beach, mountains/canyons, as well as being both active and having downtime. In retrospect, I probably could have added a few more "active" experiences to my itinerary but also appreciated having downtime many afternoons to read and relax. In my experience, Matoke is very receptive to creating the experience you are seeking. I encourage travelers to let them know up front what kind of experience they want to have.
Overall, another great experience with Matoke. I highly recommend them to travelers genuinely seeking an experience that will be informative, exciting, safe/comfortable, fun, and memorable. I also highly recommend Madagascar as a destination. So many beautiful places to see, creatures to admire, and incredible people to meet.
50-65 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Excellent
Pierre is an excellent guide he is very informative and creative in the way he adapted the Safari to the abilities of our varied group. Because of this we saw more and had a by far greater experience and a great time. I will be touring with Pierre again.
TN
Very good experience with my driver Ambrose
What you do think about the communications, service, living up to expectations, the safari tour itself and so on?
Very good experience with my driver Ambrose
TL
50-65 years of age | Experience level: over 5 safaris
Mwangi’s unsurpassed expertise
In September 2015 we, Léonie and Rick, joined Mwangi for a 6-days bird safari. Mwangi is a very knowledgeable guide and highly recommended. We are keen birders with lots of bird-guide experience world-wide. Therefore, we can make a good comparison between Mwangi and other guides. In short; we’ve not come a across a more knowledgeable bird guide since our 30 years of birding.
We had our first encounter through BirdingPal. We then used email for discussing a tailor-made trip. Mwangi is a good listener and understood well that we were not in search of the big five or fancy resorts. He has the right contacts in the right places, such as Lake Elementaita and Lake Baringo. Good accommodations, simple and exactly what we were looking for. We hardly saw any other tourists.
Mwangi offers bird watching time for as long as you like. Sometimes we ran out of energy, but he was still going strong. Even during the late evenings, when checking bird lists, he was helpful reminding us the details of the birds we saw that day. This prevented some errors for our eBird submissions. And when, during dinner, he heard a potential lifer, he dragged us out into the bush again. Of course, we didn’t mind!
Mwangi knows the calls virtually all the birds. He can even distinguish if the call is a mimic done by another species. We met his mentors, but he has clearly surpassed them all. What is also important; Mwangi is a team player. He knows his birds, but he also receives advice form the local experts. This way we found Owls and Nightjars in a matter of minutes. He would probably have found them by himself, but it saved time to learn about the latest roosting movements by teaming up. He appreciates the smaller, less colourful birds (Hunter’s Cisticola) as much as the impressive Fish Eagle.
This recommendation is an update for after an upgrade of Mwangi’s website. Now we can add, that we joined Mwangi once more in 2017. This trip was much longer, as we were keen to learn more from Mwangi’s expertise. We’ve seen nearly 500 bird species in Kenya, but it’s likely we’ll add some more in the future. And we are sure to contact Mwangi again for that trip.
Leonie & Rick
AE
20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
The most valuable, trustworthy, helpful and caring team of experts in the industry.
African Adventure team members Andrew and Martin went out of their way to make sure that our holiday in Kenya was amazing. Their personalized service was excellent and their face to face welcome was exceptional. Everything was laid out in front of us and everything was explained to us in detail. Our tour/safari guide Mulei was an amazing person who was an expert and was also kind and very helpful. We highly recommend African Adventure for your next visit to Kenya.
35-50 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Incredible experience and our best trip to date!
This was our fourth trip to Africa and certainly our best to date. We started planning nearly two years in advance and Clyde was with us every step of the way sharing his personal experiences and ideas but still being willing to listen and consider our needs. The level of service and expertise extended to us surpassed our expectations, especially when we had to suddenly bring our trip forward to March from August. Clyde never batted an eyelid and did everything needed to ensure that we had a successful trip. He was always super responsive (even on weekends) and used to get on the phone with us to discuss issues and concerns even though we were based in Sydney.
Travelling to Botswana in the green season is always tricky. We had heard horror stories from friends who had travelled the previous year and were quite apprehensive about it all. Clyde assuaged all our fears and promised us that we would enjoy our three weeks in Bots and how right he was.
Clyde chose some amazing camps and operators for us - we did not want super luxury accommodation but did want operators who prioritised the game viewing experience and that we did get. We started with mobile camping with Letaka, moved on to a combo of Kwando camps and finished off in relative luxury in Mashatu. The areas chosen covered quite a bit of what Botswana had to offer and the game viewing took our breath away.
We camped in the Okavango Delta and slept under the stars on an open deck in the Kalahari. We felt our jeep vibrate with the roars of lions, spent hours with leopards, saw cheetahs hunt, came face to face with black maned Kalahari lions, observed the funny antics of wild dogs and were surrounded by elephants and mock charged by feisty teenagers.
From the time we landed in Johannesburg to the time we left for home we were looked after like royalty. Clyde not only monitored our progress and got messages across to us but when one of our flights got cancelled due to bad weather he went out of his way to arrange alternative transport methods so that we still made it on time for our evening safari.
We cannot recommend Clyde and TMA enough. In fact we have already booked a tour to Uganda with them for December and are in the process of organising a trip to Zimbabwe next year.
50-65 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Review about Lake Manyara National Park by Robert
Wrong time of year for the flamingos, wild life was poor.
50-65 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Review about Tarangire National Park by Daniel
one of the best park in the world
50-65 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Review about Serengeti National Park by Daniel
you will find all the big 5
50-65 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris