Absolute Africa

Reply from Absolute Africa

Hi Nicola,

Thank you for taking the time to provide feedback on the Wildlife Encounter tour you did with us.

It's great to hear you highly rate the tour leader and driver for your trip and that you feel you got to experience the “real” Africa. Organising overland tours is very much about travelling at a grass routes level so this is good to hear.

On this tour specifically, the key highlights are the mountain gorillas in Uganda and Tanzania’s most famous game parks - Serengeti and Ngorongoro Crater. There is a vast amount of ground to cover in order to visit both, and a 10 day travel time frame does suit well for many clients. As with all the trips we aim to break the travel time where we can as well. On this tour there is free time in Kisoro, followed by short drives in Rwanda allowing time to visit the Memorial and for cultural activities in Musanze. Then at the Grumeti Reserve there is time for a guided bush walk, and evening game drive, prior to entering Serengeti itself, and Ngorongoro Crater.

There are three days for sure where there are longer drive days travelling into and through rural Tanzania. This route heads off-the-beaten track. Many clients enjoy the gorgeous and varying scenery from Rwanda down on to the savanna plains of the Serengeti, viewed from the large windows of the expedition truck, and there is the reward of experiencing relatively untouched areas on the way, staying in a simple traditional rural guesthouse, seeing local life at the side of the road, the ferry over to Mwanza, and the camp by Lake Victoria. On the other hand we realise that it can be hard work travelling this way, and we are sorry if you were not happy with the distances and some arrangements.

We are very troubled and particularly concerned to hear your comments in regard to food supplies and the truck being dirty.

We regularly check passenger reports and reviews and find our passengers are usually more than happy with the food provided - the amounts, variety and quality. The budgets are well maintained and checked, shopping is bought ahead of time, as well as whilst we travel, and there is usually more than adequate storage including a fridge supplemented with two cool boxes for those items that need refrigeration.

The food tends to be simple and what would be typical of the area, being what can be bought in the markets and super markets. These are group participation tours too - the food is then organised by the individuals in the group and the crew who are there to help out and offer ideas meal to meal. Where changes are wanted this can be discussed.

On early mornings we do usually have a simple breakfast of cereals and fruits so we can get away early - particularly for game drives. We find most are happy with this arrangement, accompanied by tea or coffee. At the same time we apologise if this isn’t your preference and you wanted something more substantial. On other mornings there was a wider variety of foods such as sausages, toast and beans, scrambled egg, bacon and yoghurt available. For the first five or six days of the trip too, the evening meals were prepared for the group by each campsite/guest house so the group could relax and not have to worry about food preparation. We believe there were leftovers available at each evening meal. Once in the parks, evening meals such as sausages and mash and chicken, rice and vegetables, were organised by each of the cook groups beforehand at the store in Mwanza. As part of one of those groups we would have hoped you were happy with the choice of meals selected and are really sorry if this is not the case.

The usual practice for lunch is for each individual to buy this day to day for themselves at local markets, stores or roadside sellers, which appears to have been the routine followed on your tour when you stopped for local lunches on the way into Kigali, before the Mwanza ferry crossing and in Karatu for example. Other places where we have a free day such as in Kisoro, you can buy your own lunch and snacks at the guesthouse bar or in town which is a short walking distance away. As lunches are paid for out of clients’ personal spending money it really is totally in your hands as to how much you want to buy to eat for that meal, or any extra snacks.

Where it is not possible to buy lunch daily, such as when we are in the game parks, we then pick up supplies for a couple of days at once. We usually find the food storage space to be more than sufficient - many breakfast supplies and lunch supplies too, if needed to be bought ahead of time, tend not to need refrigeration, so the ingredients for dinners and remaining breakfast and lunch items which do need to be chilled usually fit without a problem in the chillers and fridge supplied.

We are also very concerned to hear that you found the truck to be dirty, and in general you felt dirty on your trip.

The trucks travel to some very dusty rough places, and good hygiene practices are essential in this context. The cleaning supplies were available on this vehicle as usual. Each group has a roster set at the start of each tour for the rotation of general day to day duties including cooking, washing up and cleaning the truck and all groups on your tour had helped in the truck cleaning and seemed to be happy to your tour leaders knowledge. This keeps everything fair and is in keeping with the group participation style of our tours. The tour leader would have held meetings so you could raise any issue at all that might be of concern such as this, and this issue should have been addressed if you did have worries here.

Most of the campsites on this route do have showers and where there is no shower there is always water with which to wash too. We again make it clear in the predeparture packs that clients can’t expect pristine washing facilities - the water will not necessarily be hot and the pressure may well be weak, but there is always the opportunity to wash and keep clean. We also do encourage clients to bring wet wipes which can help if you want to freshen up too. And there is the usual disinfectant and water supplies on the vehicle.

We do appreciate that you have raised these issues so we can review all our arrangements again and see where we can make improvements, and again can only apologise that you weren’t happy with these aspects of your tour.

We will go back to the menus and all practices for your tour with your tour leader, to check there isn’t anything further we can do to ensure that there is always a good range and adequate supplies as it is so very important that everyone feels well fed at all times on tour, and as to the cleaning practices on this vehicle as well. We will also look at timetables and communication as sometimes there can be issues as particularly getting in and out of the game parks and when needing to meet opening times, there can be issues within the group and with day to day arrangements if all isn’t clear as to timings and who is responsible for what and when.

Our aim is to prepare passengers with detailed pre departure information including itineraries with details of the distances travelled each day and approximate drive times, as well as providing information in the packs and on our website as to the nature of the travel style. This is very comprehensive and we find clients usually head out to Africa with a good idea of the type of trip they have booked. The trips can be quite rustic, sometimes rough, visiting places where local camping and food is simple which is part of the whole experience. And at the same time it can be hard to get a balance so that everyone is happy, and to that end we do always encourage everyone to talk with their tour leader and use meetings where there are concerns through the trip. We want the trips to be a lot of fun and to really ensure everyone does get the most from their time in Africa.

If you feel you would like to discuss anything further, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with us by email or feel free to arrange a chat with Jeni or Dave, the owners. Thank you again for your feedback.