At A Glance
- Best of Botswana with its pans and delta experiencing land and water activities
- Glory of Victoria Falls
- Tanzania’s top spots including the Crater and Serengeti for the great migration whilst sleeping under canvas
- Uganda safari with time trekking to see gorillas and wildlife safari plus chimps
The Safari Briefing
Experienced by David, Susan & Friends.
A lovely referral enquiry came in from a fit, well travelled group of friends from Cairns, Australia. They were two couples in their 50s who often travel before and two had been to Africa whilst the other 2 would be first timers. Flights had been booked so we had set dates to work with. The top items were wildlife wildlife and wildlife in areas not hugely busy, so private reserves preferably and staying in good quality accommodation with decent beds and cold beer! The wishlist of destinations was Okavango Delta land and water, Masai Mara or Serengeti plains, Victoria Falls and gorillas in Uganda. Plus time to explore Madagascar and get close to lemurs in their natural habitat.
We wanted to ensure that the end product impressed the first timers and repeat visitors to Africa. To do this, we hand selected some of our favourite properties and made sure we could have the very best guides allocated to them.
The group had an outstanding time as you can see for yourself in the full guest ovation in the tab below! We look forward to creating their third trip to Africa sometime soon!
Everything went absolutely according to schedule and there were so many highlights. We have already told many of our friends to put Africa on their bucket lists and to call Encompass Africa when the time comes to plan and book if they want outstanding service.
Thank you so much to all the EA team for organising such an amazing trip for us.
The couples enjoyed the migration safari from Olakira Camp.
Feedback whilst travelling
although we’ve only been to the 3 camps in Botswana we have already run out of superlatives. The people, the food, the animal sightings, the accommodation, the meet & greet & transport people have all been UNBELIEVABLE! Biggest highlight so far…impossible to pick but being charged 3 times by a cranky lioness would be up there…along with tracking cheetahs for the kill, bushbashing & hunting with a pack of painted dogs and of course the charming meerkats….and then there was the night in the desert….no too hard to choose. 12 out of 10 so far. Just had our 2 days at Vic Falls and ALTHO IT WAS ok & THE WHITE WATER RAFTING WAS A BLAST!!!! we’re all busting to get away from people & the noise and to get back out into the bush! Bring on Tanzania!
Upon return
Encompass Africa, you asked if the trip met our expectations. No. It far exceeded them in almost every aspect! Our drivers, guides and meet & greet people were amazing. Everything went absolutely according to schedule and they were always so well organised and so well informed. There were so many highlights. Camp Kalahari with all its surprises, including being charged by a cranky lioness, an extraordinary number of big cat moments, the quality and variety of the various accommodations, bush bashing behind a pack of painted dogs while they hunted impala, standing 4m away from a silverback with shoulders the size of a Mack truck, being present for the wake-up calls of the chimps at Kibale, food, sundowners, lemurs and humpbacks galore in Madagascar, beautiful African people who give so much when they have so little. I could write an A4 page of highlights. We have already told many of our friends to put Africa on their bucket lists and to call Encompass Africa when the time comes to plan and book if they want outstanding service. Thank you so much to all the EA team for organising such an amazing trip for us.
We did find it tiring that we mostly only had 2 nights in any one place, which meant only one full uninterrupted day excluding the arrival and departure days. If we do it again (or should I say, WHEN we do it again) I would plan to do less camps and extend the stays out more. The roads in Uganda and Madagascar were ‘challenging’ and caused a few sore back issues for a couple in our party. Next time we’d pay the money for the light aircraft flights for comfort particularly in Uganda and Madagascar.
Without exception our guides were the most wonderful, caring, well-informed, special people and we felt privileged to be looked after by these amazing people. When it comes to accommodation, we loved the variety and the uniqueness of all the different places we stayed in. The standard was outstanding and the staff treated us like royalty. Superb! We did have one complaint about the food though…there was WAY too much of it and the standard was so high it was hard to say ‘no thanks’. During the first part of the trip we did a lot of sitting in trucks etc so we weren’t burning much energy but we were eating heaps. However the latter part of the trip was more active so we came home at racing weight thankfully.
