35-50 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Exciting 3days Safari experience.
Me and my partner had a very exciting 3 day Safari experience.
Most of communication was through mails and WhatsApp but responses were always good and very helpful.
Pick up from Kilimanjaro airport was smooth and the driver waited for me although I was late to get my travel entry visa.
Our guide James was professional and knew where to find the animals. He also had seemed to have good relationship with other guides enabling him to collect always good information to spot lots of animals.
Tents used for the accommodation were good and the served food was always delicious, considering the limited cooking options out in the nature.
We really enjoyed the tour. Thank you !
CA
20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Beautiful country with abundant wildlife, and cities with large wealth disparities.
Kenya is a must-travel destination if you enjoy wildlife tourism. Masai Mara is an expansive, well managed safari, with an abundance of fauna, though tour operators vary in their knowledge of details about the animals. The roads are chaotic, but it's quite fun really, and the accommodations seem quite nice when the power/wifi works. Birding isn't a big feature it seems, though there are some beautiful species, with the exception being the guides at Lake Naivasha. Nairobi has some nice restaurants at affordable prices, and is quite safe now (given the precautions taken due to terrorist attacks), but isn't worth spending much time in unless you're there for other reasons.
US
65+ years of age | Experience level: first safari
Kenya has a mild climate (in October), complex and varied wildlife and engaging, helpful people.
My brother Musa and I, both septuagenarians, had an 11-day tour that included the Samburu and Masai Mara National Reserves, the Amboseli National Park, the Ol Pejeta Conservancy, and the Lakes Nakuru and Naivasha. The Mufasa Tours representative Joseph Wakaba worked with us to plan the kind of trip we desired. Our terrific guide and driver, Boniface (Odhis) Odhiambo knew the dirt roads in all the parks thoroughly. Odhis’s skill in navigation enabled us to cover much ground and see as wide a range of wildlife as possible.
In Samburu, where we started, he showed us reticulated giraffes, Somali ostriches, several lionesses, elephants, baboons, warthogs, a cheetah, several types of antelope—oryx, Grant’s gazelles, the long-necked gerenuk— and the endangered Grévy's zebras that were being fed hay to keep them alive during the prolonged drought. In Ol Pejeta, a herd of cape buffalo rested within easy eyesight across a ditch from the lawn of the Sweetwater Lodge. We were able to get very close to and even feed the blind black rhino Baraka. We visited the sanctuary for rescued chimpanzees and saw many mammals (including plains zebras, white rhinos, spotted hyenas, impalas, Thompson’s gazelles, elephants, and a cheetah) and birds (such as the African sacred ibis, the blacksmith lapwing, and the pied crow). At Lake Nakuru, there were white rhinos on the road and a black rhino in a field. We observed the preliminary mating ritual of two Rothschild giraffes. Most spectacular were the birds in the lake: a long row of the pink lesser flamingoes, numerous greater flamingoes and pelicans, and the colorful storks—both the yellow-billed and the Marabou.
We stayed three nights in Masai Mara. New animals to us there included the Masai giraffe (yes, there are three kinds of giraffe in Kenya), the topi and hartebeest antelopes, and the common ostrich. There were also many elephants and zebras and occasional warthogs and baboons. On the first full day, we saw several lions, including a male who walked among the several sightseeing vehicles that had gathered to see him as if they weren’t there. The crackle of the radio, as the guides let each other know where a lion, cheetah, or leopard could be seen, was one of the ambient sounds of our excursions. We traveled to the Masai River to see crocodiles and a school of hippos. Toward the end of the day, we followed a leopard stalking a topi antelope. The next day, we started before breakfast and saw a rare black rhino in the early light. During the day we tracked a herd of mama elephants and their children and saw a baby sucking milk from its mother with its mouth and not its trunk. Late in the afternoon, we stayed for a while with a lone cheetah and, after that, as the sun was setting, we encountered another black rhino moving through the grass.
At Lake Naivasha, we took a boat ride. The lake had several hippos and many birds—sacred ibis, great white pelican, pied kingfisher, Egyptian geese, and the stunning lilac-breasted roller. There were also young men who waded into the water to fish. At the end of the lake, we left the boat for a while to walk through a conservancy where we could walk right up to plains zebras, Masai giraffes, and waterbuck antelopes.
Amboseli was the last place we visited before returning to Nairobi. A good part of it is a treeless swamp fed by the rainfall on the nearby Mt Kilimanjaro. In the fall of 2022, the rest of the park was quite dry, as Amboseli was in the midst of a severe drought. Although there was much water in marshy areas, the vegetation that grows there is inadequate to support non-ruminant animals like wildebeest and zebra. These animals would become too weak to extricate themselves from the marsh, remain stuck there, and die of starvation. Elephants were a bit luckier. The full-grown elephants could pull themselves out of the swampy water and knew they needed to walk back to the forest at the foot of the mountain to eat from the trees and shrubs there. But the younger ones often had difficulty. We saw many hippos wading through the plants in the swamp. They fared better than the other large animals. We did see many living animals, but many dead and dying ones, too. (The Amboseli Conservation Program website says that 12% of the 10,000 wildebeest have died, 10% of the zebras, 5% of the elephants.) The smell of the air resembled that of the seashore at low tide. The vultures had many carcasses to choose from. There were birds everywhere of many varieties: flamingoes, ibises, egrets, pelicans, storks, and others. Amboseli showed us both the abundance of nature and its cruelty.
In Nairobi, after the safari, we had two excellent dinners. The first was at the Mama Oliech restaurant where we each had an entire tilapia surrounded with vegetables and drenched in African spices. The second restaurant was Stavros, where my brother had a poussin (chicken) dish and I had a spicy bronzini.
Our excellent guide Odhis could identify most of the animals and birds, but he appreciated the supplemented information we found on the internet or with the Merlin bird app (which worked quite well even in remote areas). He told us he liked that we were curious about many things and not just focused on seeing the large animals. If we asked him to stop or linger to look at something or take a photo, he always did; but if his radio told him of something of high interest that might soon disappear, we eagerly took his suggestion to seek it out.
Because we were on a private tour our other encounters with people were brief. Memorable ones include the playful concierge at the Boma Hotel who after getting to know us, advised us, “because you are my friends,” to take an Uber to the restaurant and to go sightseeing, because it was much cheaper than the taxi she would order us. My brother speaks Swahili and a smattering of Luo, the language of the region near Lake Victoria where he lived forty-five years ago. Odhis and several of his fellow drivers were Luo and they were astonished and pleased when Musa greeted them in their native language—pleased because it showed that he had more than a passing interest in their culture. Musa also had several engaging conversations with another Luo, the head chef of the Sopa lodge chain at the first of the two Sopa lodges we stayed at. I travel light and purchased only one small item—a beautiful finely carved elephant—at one of the several curio shops we stopped at. At others shops, I felt awkward and not wanting to buy things because this was how people in the shops made their living. When I told one older gentleman that I was an old man myself and needed to get rid of things more than to acquire new ones, he patted my back and smiled as if he understood.
US
35-50 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Amazing!
Well. Please check my review on trip advisor :) :) Check out this review of Bushtop Kenya Safaris on Tripadvisor: https://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowUserReviews-g294207-d17455566-r870897050-Bushtop_Kenya_Safaris-Nairobi.html
ES
20-35 years of age | Experience level: over 5 safaris
Very patient, kind and very good driver
Karibu is the best agency in Kenya for affordable and tailor-made safaris
KR
35-50 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Exellent safari tour
Everything was well organized.
1. Transportation was wrll organized and very punture.
2. Accommodation was reasonable;Good food and kind staff. But you should take your hair dryer.
3. Safari tour was well organized but panorama tour is not recommended if you are take this tour in rainy season.
US
35-50 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Fabulous, exciting and memorable.
We had an amazing trip from Salt lick, Taita hills to Maasai Mara. We had our trip custom made and it was more than we expected. I'll definitely be traveling with your company again.
ES
35-50 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Safari with Bison
"Our guide, Douglas , made the trip for us. He was very organized and looking after everyone's needs. All the arrangement were Excellent, including hotels, airport pickup and drop-off guide .Thankyou Maggie for a superlative tour experience in Kenya. Bison Safaris has given us one of our best sightseeing experiences ever."
35-50 years of age | Experience level: over 5 safaris
Courtesy is their second name!
I have used many tour companies but Speckled Bird Tours is excellent. The staff is awesome and extremely courteous! Keep up the standards.
FR
20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
7 days tour of Namibia
We went on a tour of Namibia, starting with Sossusvlei, then Swakopmund and finally Etosha. We were very happy to combine beautiful landscapes, cute cities and a safari with the many animals.
Andre, our guide during the whole safari tour was very nice and very helpful. He even let us change some of the modalities last minute to fit best our expectations and hopes. We were very happy about these holidays and it couldn't have gone better, mostly thanks to Andre !
