Safari and Mt. Kilimanjaro trekking companies
I thought I ought to write a little bit about my experience with my client on my last trip to Africa. I went to Tanzania to shoot photos for Tropical Trails, which is the company that put together my climb up Kilimanjaro and my 7 day safari. Being my client you would probably expect me to write a fluff piece about them but no fluff is necessary. I can honestly say it was a great experience going on their trek and safari, and they stood out from the other operators in several ways.
- Their guides were very friendly and extremely knowledgeable. On my safari, there was a botanist in the group I was traveling with. When trying to ID various plants and animals, sometimes our guide would disagree with her on the classification of a plant but after consulting the books, the guide was always right. I had a friend that went with another major safari operator and said the experience was awful, and that the guide knew next to nothing and blatantly made up information.
- They treated their employees very well and make an effort to help the locals. Their operations manager started off cleaning for the company and the guide mentioned above started off as a security guard. I think one telling experience was when we were in the mess hall at our camp in Ngorongoro, we noticed that with the dozens of other groups, none of their Tanzanian guides would eat with their clients (whether they were told they weren't allowed to or not, I'm not sure but that would be my guess). Our guide always did. Also in Ngorongoro our guide made it clear to us that we were not to feed the animals in the picnic area, while the other operators did nothing as their idiotic clients were giving food to the vervet monkeys in the area (clearly against the rules of the conservation area). I take all of this to mean the company cares about the impact left by tourism, and not just pandering their clients in an irresponsible manner to get their money.
