http://www.lonelyplanet.com/thorntree/thread.jspa?threadID=1810703
This is a review on line of the tour guide we used. Modi was excellent
Tanzania - Naipenda Safari Review
Overview
I had never been to Africa and wanted to get my first and maybe only opportunity right. I settled on a Naipenda Safari tour in Tanzania. We did not want the luxury tour of fancy lodges, but rather the Hemingway experience … tents, campfires, wildlife, roughin’ it. And we did that, except that we also had a guide, cook, waiter and one guy for I don’t know what – but he was funny. Not sure if Hemingway had that entourage? We ate like kings and wanted for nothing. Our safari was the first ten days of August 2009.
Safari Company - Naipenda
Naipenda Safari caters mostly to Americans and maintain offices in Hunt, Texas (Jo Bertone) and Arusha, Tanzania (Israel Mwanga), where they have a fulltime staff of six who manage logistics. This company is very well organized and seemingly anticipates every contingency. Nice people, eager to please, grateful for the business. They can handle about 15 safaris at any one time, though like all safari companies they are down about 50% in this recession. Now is a fantastic time to go.
Guide - Modi Magesa
The tour guide can make or break your trip. Just might be the most important consideration in a long litany, and frankly you don’t know who you’ll get. We got lucky and drew Modi Magesa, an early thirties safari guide who spent several years in preparation. Most of the guides go to touring college and become highly educated on wildlife and the environment. It’s a prestigious job. With Modi, every question received an informed and often times entertaining answer. He took us inside the heads of the animals. He got excited along with us when the spectacular happened. He was snapping photos too, and ingeniously used his binoculars as a telephoto lens to take close ups. Modi pauses a few seconds before speaking, and then treats every question respectfully. He is very intelligent, patient, loves to laugh and a born leader. Modi confidently takes control and sometimes directs rival safari guides, who seem to defer to him. He out-smarts everybody. We often had the best view, or sometimes the only view of a kill. He spots lions, cheetahs and leopards almost effortlessly. We saw 84 of those in the Serengeti alone. He can identify every bird.
Halfway through our safari we discovered that two years prior that Modi had also been Oprah Winfrey’s guide. Since he is Tanzanian, we’re not sure if Modi fully understood the PR value of that? The following year, Oprah sent more of her family to Tanzania to safari with Modi and Naipenda. You and I both know Oprah is not messing around - she will get the best. I searched the web and there is no record of Oprah’s safari guide. So I just changed that – because great Tanzanians like Modi Magesa deserve some good old fashioned American PR.
Ten Days in Tanzania
First we spent a few days in Amsterdam to let our bodies adjust to the time change. Then flew via KLM to Kilimanjaro, Tanzania where we met our guide Modi and Naipenda’s “Good Luck” (Africans often have fun names). The first day was in Arusha National Park with monkeys and a canoe boat encounter with two hippos. Then a few days camping at Tarangire National Park which had most everything, including lions, elephants, giraffes, etc.. We witnessed three young male lions botch a buffalo kill because they lacked tactics and nerve. We spun through Lake Manyara for three hours – which was two hours too much. Then a couple days at Ngorongoro Crater, Africa’s Garden of Eden, which has 30,000 animals in a perfect balance of predator and prey. It hasn’t changed in thousands of years and is really beautiful. We watched two lionesses there fumble a zebra kill, because the alpha wasn’t calling the shots.
The animals are used to the safari vehicles and consider them neither friend nor foe. They stroll right by, occasionally snearing, or staring, but usually oblivious. It's always a thrill. The final four days we camped and safaried in Serengeti National Park, where according to my daughter we saw 64 lions, 15 cheetah and 5 leopards. We witnessed several kills, and nearly as many foiled attempts, which are almost as entertaining.
The Great Migration was all but over, the wildebeest had already moved north to Kenya by the hundreds of thousands, but the rest of the Serengeti wild-life remained to put on a show. Cheetah at full speed chasing gazelle, lions stalking and killing warthogs, a leopard stuck in a tree watching below his gazelle kill devoured by a hyena that he would not challenge. My teenage sons chased from our camp baboons (Modi said it was okay), heard lions snorting nearby and was warned that both buffalo and elephants had marked our campsite as their territory. And if you looked up at night – there’s the Southern Cross. It was fantastic.
Tanzanian People – Maasai too
The people are warm and friendly, including the Maasai Warriors. Everyone dresses so colorfully in bright blue, red, yellow, green, you name it. They take pride in their appearance. We saw beautiful women colorfully dressed who in America could open doors with just a smile, but walking instead with a basket on their heads down a Tanzanian dirt road. They don’t seem to mind – it is what it is. Tanzanians have few bicycles and still fewer cars. Seems like everybody is doing something, heading somewhere, usually on foot and looking great doing it. The country is very poor but they all seem to make do. The crime rate is low because the justice system is oppressive. A mere accusation from anyone means guilty until proven innocent. The school children wear colorful uniforms and are very cute. Tanzanians speak Swahili, an easy language to learn, and appreciate your attempts. Most will bail you out with English and a smile. They love to laugh, hold hands and chat. They are charming. Everything is negotiable. Bring $1’s and $5’s – they gladly take American dollars, euros too. Even the Maasai Warrior Village we visited in the Serengeti was a capitalist enterprise in the making. Those guys with the spears jumping up and down have a wife waiting to sell you a necklace. In the midst of a mud hut village and swirling dustbowl - it’s buy three and get one free.
Things We Needed, Things We Didn’t
REI sells long sleeve safari shirts that are perfect. Avoid blue and black because tsetse flies are attracted to those colors. Dress in layers. Long pants, cargo is handy. Hiking shoes are all you need. Forget sandals. We brought a slew of insect repellent and never used it. Maybe we got lucky, but bugs were not a problem. We took Malaria pills and none of us got sick in any way. We drank only bottled water. Don’t even think of doing otherwise anywhere. Our group preferred Serengeti (Tanzania) and Tusker (Kenya) beer. The others, Kilimanjaro, Safari, Castle, all tasted the same – bland. We all wore Survivor style buffs, including our guide Modi. Binoculars are a must. We had one digital camera with a large telephoto lens and one without – both proved necessary. Typical day was rise at 5:45 am, coffee, tea & biscuits and safari 6:00 am to 10:00 am, return to camp, brunch and downtime until 4:00 pm, safari to 6:30 pm, hot bucket shower, campfire and drinks until 8:00 pm, dinner until 9:00 pm and then zip up the two man tents and don’t come out until dawn – rinse and repeat. You get used to the rhythm of it and like it. The food was good and well prepared. They know what Americans like.
Tipping
Everywhere you go somebody wants to do something for you – because they want a buck. Let ‘em do it. The country is poor. Your $1 for the simplest thing goes a long way, and there’s more dignity in paying for a service than charity. If you can afford a safari, then you can bring lots of $1’s and $5’s to spread around. They really appreciate it.
As for the safari crew, the unofficial tipping scale is $3-$5 per crew member, per group number, per day. On the low side, a group of six for ten days would be $180 per crew member, or $300 on the high side. We had three crew members, so triple that.
The safari tour guide is on a higher scale, which is as it should be. The guide scale is $10-$15 per group number, per day. On the low side, a group of six for ten days would be $600, or $900 on the high side. We tipped Modi still higher – because he was worth it.
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