Guide Richard at Lake Naivasha Sopa Lodge
Lenchada Safaris
- Located In:
- Size:
- 1-5 employees (Founded in 2015)
- Tour Types:
- Custom budget & mid-range tours that can start every day
- Destinations:
- Price Range:
- $50 to $400 per person per day (USD, excl. int'l flights)
Reviews
SG
Email Levi | 35-50 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Responsive
Had a great time with Lenchada exploring the Mara. Geemon our guide & driver is very polite and knowledgeable. The camp site is comfortable and the food is satisfactory. Do time yourselves for a great trip ahead!
NL
Email Johanna | 50-65 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Affordable and amazing
I did the six day tour, Maasai Mara, Nakuru, Amboseli. It was an amazing experience, beautiful parks, and I saw the big 5. Thanks to our great tour guide Peter an Moses. Accommodations were basis, at least in Maasai Mara, but along the trip they got better. But for that price, it was very good.
I recommend to change a little bit in the program, because the one night in Nakuru, makes it a long day from Nakuru to Amboseli. You spend almost 12 hours in the jeep.
But thanks Peter and Moses for the great experience, the amazing driving and your great eyesight. You guys see everything. Communicating with other tour guides in the park makes that you most likely see all of the big five.
JO
Email Khaleel | 20-35 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Nice experience over all
So I booked the five days safari for Maasai Mara, it was a very decent experience especially compared to what I paid for. The driver was super nice but this safari could be better when it comes to many things. First thing is the optional activities, if you don’t do them you’ll be literally doing nothing “for hours?” In the car, so you’ll have to do them and each one costs around 20-30$ so each day after the second one you’ll be paying around 50$ per person including the tips, so if you’re doing 5 days, that’s around 150USD extra, I don’t mind that at all, as I really enjoyed the activities but I wish their price was included in the whole package as they are “technically” not optional:/ the second thing which is the Maasai village, I hated how I was literally “forced” to buy something from them, so my trip to the village which was supposed to be 20$ ended up as 40$ and what they sold me was the fabric, and it was used, they didn’t even give me a new one:/ I got to know that they have tons of new ones after they gave me the used one, with used I mean someone was wearing it for god’s know how long. The last point is the experience that I had in the very first accommodation when I was trying to buy a bottle of water using USD, and the guy told me “don’t expect me to give you Nairobi’s rates here in the bush, that literally made me feel very uncomfortable! He was super direct about trying to rip me off, as there’s no other place to buy water!
If you guys work on these small details I’m sure you’ll be more successful.
Other than that everything was very positive from how responsive they were, to how many animals we saw, and the memories I made with the people I met there!
PT
Email Carolina Marques | 20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
The perfect guide but might not to be the perfect company
We booked a 4 days (with game drives in all of them) and 3 nights safari going to Masai Mara and Lake Nakuru. When we got to the office on the first day to pay, the company said that there was a “small” change in our itinerary that would make our 3rd day a day without doing game drive (80$ p person entrance fee to the park) and in exchange they would take us to the Masai Vilage (20$ fee supposed to be optional in our 2nd day). Part of the group had other programs booked so thanks to the our driver we got to experience a boat ride in a lake (we would have to pay extra 20$ p person) to compensate us.
To sum up, it was an amazing experience, with good food and that we would love to repeat, especially with Joseph, who made our safari amazing.
To the company the only thing I wish they did better: it was not let you book a program that they can not provide…
FR
Email LJ | 20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
My first safari (and solo)!
I booked the 6 Day Maasai Mara, Lake Nakuru and Amboseli Budget Landcruiser safari and the booking team (Alex) was super helpful and maintained clear communication up to the time I was picked up on D-Day.
The first 2.5 days with Ibrahim as my tour guide was excellent! He really knew the Maasai Mara reserve like the back of his hand and made significant effort to ensure we saw as much as possible! However, I completely believe that the budget lodge needs significant renovation. The conditions of the tent were passable at best but they have a great team there. Secondly, I regret going to the MM village; not a privileged moment with the local people to discover their culture but a money grab at every moment. Eg. we were shown a welcome dance and encouraged to participate but weren't educated about the moments that these were actually performed in their daily lives. The main Maasai guide constantly encouraged you to take photos of everything which just felt so intrusive. These are real people and not characters putting on a show and should be given that respect. Overall this part of the program was my favourite.
Things took a turn when it was time to move on to the last 2 parts of the program. Turns out, they randomly throw people together on these group tours, which in theory is fine and efficient but this time they lacked good coordination which had an impact on my experience. I booked (and fully paid) solo with Lenchada but turns out I kept getting placed with guides from "Jocky Tours" (imagine my surprise and confusion). (1) On my program, I was expecting an evening game drive upon arriving at Nakuru but instead was forced to go with the rest of the group in the vehicle to an almost 2 hour stop at Lake Naivasha before heading to Lake Nakuru; resulting in being unable to the evening drive. (2) We had to drop people into Nairobi instead of taking the planned direct route to Amboseli from Nakuru, resulting in no evening game drive but also having to endure very dangerous driving getting to the Lodge in Amboseli in the night (there aren't much street lamps but an abundance of wildlife in this area as you can imagine). Furthermore, because we arrived so late, the driver proposed not to do an early morning game drive which is when Mount Kilimanjaro is clearest. I almost missed it, thank God I had one more day. Everything with this driver felt rushed and unorganised during this last period and had a significant impact on my safari experience. The driver also displayed serious favouritism with all the other travellers in the group and made me feel even more unwelcomed being by myself. I even overheard him sending safari review links to everyone except me (let's not get into the fact that I was the only Black person in the group). Anyway, the lodges during this part were nice and seeing Mount Kilimanjaro in all its splendor was the only highlight.
I will definitely be back to Kenya! The wildlife and national parks are an absolute dream.
GR
Email Marianna | 20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Things to be aware of | honest yet a little bit long review
We chose Lenchanda Safaris (or Jockey Tours) because its prices were lower than the other safari companies were offering, and we also read plenty of good reviews on the internet. Considering our possibilities, we chose the Budget 6-day trip for Masai Mara, Lake Nakuru and Amboseli, and a few days before our departure to Kenya we sent an email to confirm that everything was fine, to which we received positive feedback. Our first guide was Francis, and he took us to Masai Mara and then Lake Nakuru. The fourth day, moving from Nakuru to Amboseli (long distance to drive), passing through Nairobi, we learnt that we needed to change guide (Alex) though keeping the same jeep. If it is true that until that moment we had a great time, from that moment on we started having a few issues. While driving to Amboseli through the night we realized that the car didn't have proper lights to drive (Amboseli is 4-5 hours away from Nairobi), something that we didn't know, so the trip after a while got quite scary and dangerous, as a matter of fact we have been also stopped by the police. It goes without saying that driving very slow because of reduced visibility increased the amount of time to arrive, and in the way we found out that the Lodge we were supposed to stay was not available and we were moved to a different camp (this was never mentioned to us at any moment in the past 2 weeks, even when we asked if everything was ok before our departure
Beside the fact that Alex was driving very slow so to be able to see, we were surprised by the fact that multiple times he didn’t know where to go, and not had clear idea of the direction to take. After plenty of hours in the car (it was around 9 pm), we reached our new accommodation, where we learnt that they were fully booked. Alex, even though he was not giving us proper explanations, was trying to talk with the office to find a solution. At the end, at around 11 pm, we moved to another hotel for the night (thankfully it was a 5-star hotel). However, for the last day, we moved again to another one, which was a very bad option, and a quote dirty option we have to say. Unfortunately, this experience had a very strong and bad effect on the overall safari experience.
As for the guides, the first one, Francis, is a very energetic and knowledgeable person about safaris, with many years of experience, so he played a crucial role in the trip for the first 4 days. Alex, on our opinion, is not a safari guide, even though he was giving us interesting infos during the game drives. Multiple times he seemed to not have experienced Amboseli before, and for sure he did not help us to spot animals in Amboseli.
As a whole, the safari trip was affected significantly by all those events. Of course, we enjoyed it because the places are very beautiful and being able to see these animals from such a short distance is amazing, but driving safely and proper organization/communication are key aspects that were definitely missing!
AT
Email carmen | 20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
A unique experience
I want to start things off with saying that we saw a lot of animlas, every animal we wanted to see. The organisation and communication was quite ok. We got picked up in front of our hotel a bit later than planned and then droven to the office to pay the rest of the tour and then already headed to Masai Mara and had our evening game drive. We traveled there with our driver/guide Johnny who knows a lot about the animals and answered all our questions. He is a very good drive who has a good sense of when to go where to spot animals. The game drives were always packed with watching and photopraphing animals and admiring Masai Mara. We were staying at the Manyata camp which offers a big tent with a bathroom (shower and toilet) and space for 2-3beds. There's a big dining hall at the main building where we ate our meals (the food was good, hot water for coffee or tea and hot milk were provided). The whole facility looked gorgeous and the staff was nice. One problem was that the toilets were not flushing, sadly. On the last day we visited Masai village and were shown around by locals. All in all the whole tour was an interesting, beautiful and unique experience I wouldn't want to miss.
US
Email SFK | 35-50 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Jim was prompt, kind, and helpful.
We really enjoyed this camping safari. Hot showers and comfortable beds were a plus and we felt connected to nature with a couple monkeys coming by for a visit. Electricity for charging phones is limited to the evening hours, but it was sufficient and we enjoyed meeting travelers by the campfire. The Maasai village visit was educational and would recommend. Rustic but the food was great and staff are kind and helpful.
DE
Email Sam | 20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Everything worked out well
The Lenachada camp was a dream. Really good tents, bathrooms and food
NL
Email Ilse | 20-35 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Amazing experience
I had a very nice safari. Alex, my tour guide, had a big part in this. If we wanted to stop somewhere for pictures this was no problem. Alex knew a lot about the animals, so if you want to book this tour I definitely recommend Alex. Communication with Lenchada Safaris was very smooth and they helped me with all my questions. I enjoyed my safari. I would definitely recommend this one.