08 May 2024
This trip was wonderful - as a planner, it was a little hard to give the reins over to someone else to make all the decisions, but they did a great job. I had multiple guides - day 1 was Omar and day 2-5 was Godson, then Joel took over for my Materuni Waterfalls & Chemka Hot Springs excursion. All the guides were excellent - knowledgeable, happy to answer questions, and they had very impressive driving skills on the washed out roads created by the rainy season. I was really impressed by the guides' ability to flex with the demands of the weather and the availability of animals, as well as their ability to deal with lots of different personalities in terms of the tourists. A note: there are lots of possible side excursions, but they are pretty much all based in Arusha. So I took a combo trip for 3 things on my final day before they dropped me off at the airport, and it was GREAT! They timed it perfectly to make sure that I got to the airport precisely when I needed to, and got to see lots on the way there. It was a private excursion, though - because they need to tailor the drop off time based on your flight. Overall, I saw lots of wonderful animals, and met some great people - people who worked for Travel Africa and people who were on the trip. An awesome adventure!