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This is one time when I used a US travel agency to book my trip and it was nothing but problems. I worked with a company named Borton Overseas, located in Minnesota. Some of the issues were just due to their incompetence and some are inherent in adding layers between me and the actual people I ended up doing business with. Things that I really wanted as part of the trip were not included (even though I had made it clear that I wanted them included), I was driven in uncomfortable trucks and my guide in Tanzania was a complete loser. I did get a great guide for the Kenya portion and the guides in Uganda were good. I strongly recommend not doing business with Borton or with Tanzania Photographic Tours. In spite of the great guide I also cannot recommend Vintage Travel in Kenya, due to the poor condition of their vehicles. I can say that Pearl Of Africa (in Uganda) is a good bunch. In general I would say that it is better to do business with one of the big companies (Mountain Travel) or work directly with the African company. Part of the problem was with me – I am just used to having the flexibility to change my plans when I want to and this is not possible when you book a tour in advance.
In spite of all this I loved Africa and hope to go back many times.
I did make it back in December of 2002, this time heading to Morocco, Mali, Senegal and Gambia. I had much different experience, this time it was much more focused on people and scenery but again I loved it. I am already planning another trip to Africa, there is just so much to see there
Kenya
My adventures in Kenya started in Samburu National Park. This turned out to be my favorite park, I saw more wild life, spent more time with native people and fell in love with the dry rugged territory. One of the first things you learn if you go on a tent tour in Africa is the quality of some of the places you stay. The tents are extremely comfortable and there is hot water for showers. This was particularly true at Samburu when I stayed at the Samburu Intrepids Club but could be said for most places. Here I saw all of the big animals that I hoped to see in Africa except for the Hippo and Rhino. It was especially good for cats, I saw Leopards and Cheetahs up close. The real treat was when I browbeat my guide into taking me to find some native Samburu people. I was insistent that we not go to one of the tourist villages, so we drove almost 35 miles north to the base of a beautiful mountain. Here we met up with a group of Samburus who were just setting up a new camp (they are nomadic people). They have a rough life, there is little water and they are always under threat of having their cattle stolen by other tribes in sometimes-violent raids.
The other places that I went to were:
Aberdares Mountains: I stayed at the Ark and would never go back;
Lake Nakuru: Pink flamingos and lots of game in a small park;
Masai Mara: Well known and a bit crowded but lots of game;
Amboseli: Kilimanjaro in the background and lots of elephants.On the way home I spent a day in Nairobi, even with its reputation for crime I had a great time here. Found a safe bar to go to and a very nice art gallery. You do have to be careful after dark but it is not the wasteland that the guidebooks make it out to be.
One experience I will always remember about Kenya.
There are a lot of things I will remember about Kenya but the day that stands out the mostwas at Masai Mara. Once again I talked my guide in to looking for a Masai village away from the tourists. We found one about 10 miles outside of the park. I was invited into the hut of the headman. It was unbearably hot in there, with lots of flies (Masai share their lives with their cattle). My guide spoke Swahili but not Masai so every question I asked had to be translated by my guide from English to Swahili, then the one person in the family who spoke Swahili would translate into Masai. By the time the answer came back to me I never really knew how it related to the question. Somehow I learned a lot about Masai life.
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Mali
This was a country that I really loved. It is not easy but there is lots to see and do. It helps if you love the desert as I do because this a very dry place. Bamako is sort of rough place for the capital city, there is one ATM and it would not work with my card so I spent a lot of time waiting in line to get cash. Lots of good places to eat though and decent hotels. However, once you leave Bamako it is all rough hotels with no hot water. My favorite place was Djenne, a place where I made lots of friends even though I do not speak French. I spent four days in Dogan country hiking and that is a very nice experience. This is one place where you really feel that you are getting away from it all. There are tourists there but it is such a big area that you rarely run into other foreigners. Mopti and Tombouctou are less interesting. Some of my best times where when we just stopped at little villages along the way and I walked around meeting people and learning about life in a really poor country.
One experience I will always remember about Mali.
The mosque is Djenne is off limits to non-Muslims for the most part. But as I was walking by I saw some officials from some NGO going in who were clearly not Muslim, they had a guide and a big video camera. I just walked in behind them and joined the tour. It was all in French so I did not understand what the guide was saying but my guide was with me so told me the history of the place. It was nice inside and I felt lucky to get to be inside.
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Morocco
I started out in Casablanca where I spent one night and then rented a car. The roads and drivers in Morocco are surprisingly good although I had some brushes with danger on some of the smaller roads. I headed to Rabat, a place I cannot recommend, just not much to see or do there. I should mention that I went to Morocco during Ramadan, this limited some of my options and I did not eat a lot during the day. I then drove to Marrakesh, a great city with so much to see. I spent some of my time in the market and I ate there every evening. Spent a day going to the Cascades d'Ouzoud a decent trip. Drove down to the area around Quarzazate which really felt like the middle of nowhere. I enjoyed the desert very much and met a lot of nice people, few tourists in the area. Made my way back to Casablanca where I celebrated the end of Ramadan with the local people, this was a lot of fun.
One experience I will always remember about Morocco.
Hiking up the Dades Valley I met a Berber woman with her baby. She was very friendly and although I do not speak French and she did not speak a lot of English we still communicated. We walked together for a couple of miles and had a nice time
Tanzania
I had such a bad guide here that I never fully appreciated the country. Also, by this point in my trip I had seen so much game that I was actually a bit tired of it. I wanted to see something different. I enjoyed Ngorongoro Crater for the sheer beauty of the place and Serengeti was covered with herds of animals as promised. We did stop by Olduvai Gorge, where there is a museum covering the discovery of the old footprints, although you cannot actually see the gorge. At Serengeti I hired a walking guide to take me out in the park. We had a nice hike and saw a lot of the park from a different point of view. This is a great thing to do if you have a chance. Another afternoon when I was tired of seeing wildebeests we drove out to look at some of the plants and birds.
One experience I will always remember about Tanzania.
The hotel where I stayed in Ngorongoro was built on the rim of the caldera with a view of the entire park. One night the there were a series of lightning storms that swept through the park and I was able to sit out on the porch and watch these spectacular storms for over two hours. At times it seemed that the entire park was lit up.
Senegal/Gambia
I After Mali Senegal was disappointing, I found the people to be less friendly and there was less to see. I had so-so guide and a bad driver so it took longer to get around then it should have. We drove to Niokolo-Koba national park, which was really a bust. There is just no wildlife there to see, particularly if you have been to East Africa. I stayed at the best hotel in the park and still no hot water, in fact the generator went out and we had no water at all. The food was good but that was all I could say for the place. We then drove to Gambia where it was nice for me just to be in a place where English is spoken. Not a lot to do there, I took a nice boat trip up the river and hiked through a small park. The night life was great, lots of fun to party there and the people are warmer than Senegal. Nice hotels in the beach area, really resort type hotels.
One experience I will always remember about Senegal/Gambia.
Travel in places like this are often an adventure but I had a day I will always remember. Left the hotel in Niokolo-Koba at 6:30 Am. The car broke down 3 times before the Gambia border then we got stopped by the police just across the border in Gambia where the cop made us sit for 45 minutes until he would let me pay the bribe to go on. By this time we had missed the ferry and had to wait two hours for the next one. Finally got in at 9:30 PM, a trip that should have taken 6 or 7 hours. Still I got to talk to a lot of local people while we were getting the car fixed and waiting at the ferry crossing. The police stop really showed how important a good guide is, we should have been able to pay the bribe and get on our way but he did not handle it well. All part of travel.
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Uganda
I went to Uganda with one purpose – to see the mountain gorillas – and I was successful in this endeavor. It happened that I enjoyed the rest of the stay there and ended up wishing that I had planned for more time there. Gorilla viewing can be a hit or miss proposition according to the guidebooks and can sometimes involve a six-hour hike. There are two parks in Uganda to see gorillas and I ended up at Mgahinga, the less popular park. There were only 2 other tourists and we had a total of 7 armed guides and bodyguards (both parks have had tourists attacked by rebels from the Congo or Rwanda in the past). We simply hiked to the place where the guides had seen the gorillas the day before and then follow the trail, through almost impassable jungle, till we find them. The guides are very good at this and chop a path with a machete. Mgahinga has one troop of gorillas that are used to seeing people and you get exactly 1 hour to view them. You are not allowed to get closer then 25 feet but the gorillas sometimes come closer to you, they are intelligent and curious animals. It is difficult to express how wonderful this experience is, well worth the trip.
I also stopped at Lake Mburo a nice park with good hiking and spent 2 days at Queen Elizabeth National Park. I would have traded all of the time I had in Tanzania for more time here. A boat ride to see hundreds of hippos, lots of elephants and lions. If Borton had not screwed up I would have seen Chimps also. Kampala was a fun place to spend time. Great nightlife and safe, I walked home to my hotel at 3:00 AM with no problems. There is an odd little museum and a pretty Mosque to visit also.
Two experiences I will always remember about Uganda.
First, on the gorilla trek someone stepped on a branch and startled the gorillas. After they had recovered from the shock the silverback leaped up and charged at us beating his chest. I thought I was dead, but he turned off at the last moment and walked into the jungle. The guides were practically rolling on the ground laughing, they knew we were safe and that the gorilla was just showing off but enjoyed our fear. Second, I talked the guides into taking some far back roads on the way to Mgahinga. We got so far off the beaten path that the locals just stared at me in every village. They wanted to know what I was doing out there, one of the women told my guide that her children had never seen a white person before.
