Tanzania Testimonials
(and favorite moments and stories)
See also:
The trip was excellent. The people we were with in Tanzania were knowledgeable and very helpful. Dismas ran a great team!!! (and, they were his team) Dismas, Amos, David and Meshack were fun, friendly and quietly making sure we were all doing well with the altitude. The packing list was fairly accurate. We were very happy with the Rongai route.
Kristen F.
Australia
6-day Rongai and 3-day Safari, Summitted January 8, 2012
The 3 guides couldn't have been better or nicer or more patient with us changing our minds, seeing the animals and nice places and helping us find poor people to give things to. They were all very helpful..Aimable, Richard, Godlisten and Ali and did their jobs very well.
We got to see several"migrations" which made us very happy and excited. Twice we watched over 45 elephants march by the van, counted over 100 giraffes in one small area, bypassed a marching ant colony, and thoroughly enjoyed watching the zebras, gazelles and wildebeasts running and lining up. We estimate we saw at least 100,000 in the main migration and marveled at the numbers.
At our main safari tent camp in the Serengeti, we were met by everyone of the 10 staff lined up and very happy to greet us with the wet hot wash cloths. I had made stockings for the staff which they got that night. The next day after breakfast, I toured their kitchen facilities and got to see their frozen and dry storage areas. I commented on some of the items I saw they had and thanked them for letting me see everything. That evening we were greatly surprised and pleased to see that the cook had taken the time/effort to incorporate 3 of the items I had looked at into our dinner menu. The serving staff was so happy to "thank" us with their special meal. It was a great feeling to have been thought about in that way and a wonderful gift from them. We had given items to all of the staffs, but these men were the only ones to "give back" and show their appreciation. They made us feel special.
By the time we got to Ngorongoro, we had seen all of the big 5 cheetas, leopards, etc. except the rhino. We looked all over for one and finally saw one far, far away. We headed out of the crater and on our way were able to see 10 more! They were much closer and it was so exciting to see almost half of the rhino population there. We were so lucky the entire trip to see so many animals as we saw over 105 different species and lots of most of them. Thanks!
Charlotte M.
Salt Lake City, Utah
8-day Safari, December 2011
AWR coordinated an awesome Tanzanian experience for us. We cannot say enough GREAT things about our entire Kili team, especially our guide - Reggie, and assistant guide Boka. They were so friendly, professional, helpful and a joy to spend six days with. Our gear was superior to all the "big name" outfitters we saw (i.e. Zara). The Safari was also fantastic. Our guide Amani was able to answer every possible flora/fauna question we could throw at him.
The Rhotia Valley tented camp was AMAZING. 10/10 The Halisi tented camp was our favorite part of the entire trip, food and staff were beyond wildest expectations. 10/10
Thanks for the amazing trip and the experience of a lifetime!
FAVORITE STORY: Making the AMAZING trek up Mt. Kilimanjaro and both my husband and I crying at Stella's point. It just hit us - without warning - 'Wow! This is incredible' we said! Then slowly making it up to the summit and celebrating with our guides, Reggie and Boka! What a wonderful experience!
Josh W. and Lauren H.
Boulder, Colorado
6-day Machame and 5-day Safari, Summitted December 24, 2011
Our driver Agray was very accommodating and was so great with our 3 year old, Abbie. Agray was a wealth of information as we were driving through Maasai villages, and Lake Manyara etc. He made our family trip thoroughly enjoyable. He was great at finding cheetahs, lions and leopards for us on safari!
FAVORITE STORY: Our daughter loved using local phrases she learnt from our driver, Agray. In particular after our daughter Abbie had enough of watching a particular animal she would say to Agray 'Asante' and he would respond 'Karibu'. A few times we weren't ready to leave when she was, and we would have to override her decision!
Carolyn R.
Australia
6-day Safari, December 2011
Our guide Hadji was amazing! Very knowledgeable, very conversational (he taught us all the Swahili names for the animals), very funny. We felt incredibly lucky to have him as our guide. We spoke to several other people on safari with different (and even more luxury companies/packages) and they were not near as satisfied with their own guides. Hadji was very accommodating and worked very hard to find us the best sights. We all thought he was just fabulous.
FAVORITE STORY: We spent our last evening at Simba(?) camp on the edge of the Nygorongoro Crater. As we were leaving dinner, we walked outside to see an elephant not twenty feet away, leisurely dipping his trunk into and drinking out of our water supply tank. He stood there for probably ten or fifteen minutes and helped himself to our water supply while a huge number of us just stood around him in open-mouthed awe. Finally, when he'd had enough, he turned toward to face us, advancing slowly toward the crowd. At this point, the camp was severely divided into two factions--those of us that wanted to run up and pet him and take him home with us and those of us that were running for our lives!!! After standing there for just a minute or two (I presume to allow us the effect of his full majesty), he turned and shuffled peacefully and silently off into the trees. WOWOWOWOWOW!!!!!!!!!!!! That moment alone was well worth the price of admission! If you'd like to see the photos (or use them) just let us know!
Sonnet B., Autumn B., Ann C.
Boulder, CO
6-day Rongai and 5-day Safari, October 2011
I was very pleased with the group of porters guide and cook we had, Fred knew exaclty what to do and was very flexible, we decided to cut one day of the treck, so we did it in 6 day's insted of 7, started the summit at 3:00am insted of 6:00am (at our demand) very sympatical guy, the food was great to... Thank you Dan, Robin and Barbara for the wonderfull experience, you made it so much easy for us....
FAVORITE STORY: The feeling you get ounce on top....is simply undiscribable...what a feeling!!!! The view's, the forest....wow!!!!!
Mathieu
Quebec, CA
7-day Umbwe Route trek, summited on January 19, 2011
