Your pictures are wonderful, thanks for sharing. Cannot wait to go!! We leave in 2 days, also booked with Good Earth. Who was your guide and how long did it take for a replacement vehicle to come out to you?

I hope you have an awesome trip. It took about an hour and a half, it would've been longer, but instead of waiting for a replacement from Arusha, they 'hired' a van in the village where we stopped. The new van was even older and more decrepit looking than ours, so I was a bit nervous. The van came with its own driver and another guy sitting in front, so we had to crowd in the back with all our baggage and supplies. THen to my surprise, we stopped at the turnoff to machame route, and picked up two of our porters!! Then we were REALLY crammed in there. Then we stopped twice for some other supplies! It was well after 1 pm when we arrived at the Machame gate, we were nearly the last to start hiking.
Our guide was Earnest, he was ok, but I wouldn't recommend him. Our safari guide was Joseph, and he really new the birds and wildlife well, but could have done better in other areas.

Great pics!! If you have time and opoortunity, captions on them especially the birds would really add to our enjoyment.

These are incredible!

Cmlong,

So what happened with the broken down vehicle and how much or how little were you inconvenienced? That's a good hypothetical question to ask any outfitter: What happens in a breakdown?

You caught the lion sleeping in the tree and what a napper. Tarangire or Manyara? Adorable baby jackal. Nice hyrax and mongoose comparison piece. Were the barbet shots in Tarangire? We had some of our best views of these guys there. You must have had a special agama setting on your camera, they were so brilliantly colored.

Only ok for Good Earth?

Although having the van break down is pretty bad, hiring that van and getting you to where you were going without too much delay shows a certain level of customer care - nothing special I guess, but at least they got you there on time by hook or crook. Actually, given what some people seem to go through in East Africa, maybe it should be classed as special.

The driver comes with the van and the other guy was going to visit his sister or fancied a day out. Been there.

Oh, I missed the part about what happened with the broken down van. Now I read it. That's a novel solutuion that could be considered "special."

Sorry for the delayed response, I haven't been monitoring this forum in a while, since the TZ trip was last year. The lion in the tree was in Tarangire, not Manyara. I think we saw Barbets in at least two of the four parks we visited, including Manyara, and I forget which other park. Yes, Good Earth was OK, and they did a decent job dealing with the van breakdown, but there were some other issues as well, so overall I would rate them as only OK. I think I've detailed the other problems in previous posts (lack of guide for most of the Kili trek - we were stuck with an assistant guide who spoke almost no English, no icebox provided on the hot safari, so lunches were not kept chilled and no cool water to drink), etc.

What were the temperatures like in September? Also, where did you stay in the Serengeti? It looks like you saw some decent-sized wildebeest herds. I'm headed to Tanzania myself this September (originally planned for Kenya, but it was a
"no go" for the "newbies" going with me.)