This forum obviously has some very knowledgeable folks. Thanks for any thoughts, particularly with respect to the safari portion of our planned adventure which can be customized. Here's our plan:

Arrive Kilimanjaro 1/18/08

1/19 to 1/29 - Climb Kilimanjaro with Summit Expeditions and Nomadic Experience - SENE (www.nomadicexperience.com) - run by a local Chagga guide, Simon Mtuy, the world record holder for unassisted ascent and descent of Kilimanjaro (less than 10 hours! - we'll take 9 days on the mountain by way of the Lemosho - Shira Crater Route)

1/30 to 2/3 - 6 day (5 night) private safari with SENE with proposed lodging:
Tarangire Safari Lodge
E-Unoto Retreat
Ndutu Safari Lodge (2 nights)
Gibbs Farm

2/4 to 2/5 Stone Town, Zanzibar (Beyt al Chai B&B)
2/6 to 2/8 Pongwe Beach Hotel (for diving and R&R)

2/9 return to US via JRO

Please let me know if you have suggestions for customizing the safari (we can choose other lodging, but I think Ndutu, E-Unoto and Gibbs are good choices if they are otherwise strategically located for this relatively short safari at that time of year. Should we choose an alternative lodge to Tarangire Safari Lodge? I believe we will be starting from Marangu following the trek and I expect we will still be blown away and maybe a little tired by that experience, having come down from the summit over the 2 days before.

Also, of course, I'd be interested to hear if anyone has comments about SENE. I haven't seen any postings on the forums about them, but I am impressed with what I have learned - mostly from their website, google searches on Simon Mtuy.

Thanks.

Rich

Rich, I would personally rather stay on the rim at Ngorongoro Crater instead of staying at Gibbs Farm, if game drives in the Crater are high on your list of 'must sees'. Possibly they are putting you at Gibbs to make it easier to catch the flight to Zanzibar the next day though.

Ndutu will probably be the highlight, it's usually excellent that time of year. We did January safaris to these same places in 2006 and 2007 and spent 12 days total at Ndutu ... you can get an idea of what we saw from the photos at this site ... http://members.aol.com/bhilton665/africa/

Bill

Thanks Bill.

Wow! You have a great site and fabulous photos. We're not even amateur photographers, but I do have an old Canon AE-1. Should I bring it and get a good long lens or stick to my digital with 15x zoom? Or even just take it all in without worrying much about photos? I'll probably do some study on photography anyway to have a chance at bringing back some good shots. Any book recommendations for a novice?

I will ask the company about staying on the crater rim for more time in the cater - I initially suggested that we might want to upgrade to the Crater Lodge, but think it may not be worth the substantial premium. Sopa seems like a good choice. Would that be your first choice for us given the rest of our itinerary - or one of the other crater lodges? They didn't say that we needed to be at Gibbs Farm (or their next choice, Plantation Lodge) for any logistical reasons, but they seem to rate Gibbs most highly for the site and food. Our flight to Zanzibar can be fairly late in the day I think, but maybe the time to return is a factor?

Thanks again for your help.

Rich

Rich, I'd say just take the digital with the nice zoom.

Regarding Gibbs, we've eaten lunch there three times and I agree it would have better food and a nicer atmosphere than say Sopa Ngorongoro, but it's outside the Ngorongoro Conservation area, near Karatu. We haven't stayed there because we like to squeeze in every last game drive possible.

On our last day we leave the Sopa at 6 AM, have a nice 3.5 hour game drive across the crater floor before the crowds get in, then drive out of the crater to Karatu and lunch at Gibbs, then to Arusha for a shower in a day room and repack, then head for the airport around 6 PM for the KLM flight to AMS. If you are at Gibbs you can't do this extra game drive.

If your flight to Zanzibar is leaving from the Arusha airport then you can probably make a 2 PM or so flight (it's another 90 minutes or so to the Kilimanjaro airport, so figure 4 PM flight if leaving from Kili airport). Probably the flight is earlier and that's why they want you to stay at Gibbs, which is a lot closer and gives you more leeway on time. Maybe they just don't want to cut the time too close in case of a flat or traffic jam or whatever. Also note it's now very expensive to access the crater, I think it's around $250 now with the new fees, so maybe your agent is trying to keep the costs down.

At any rate the package you had was fine but if you are trying (like us) to shoe-horn as many game drives in as possible and if your flight leaves late enough you can get the extra drive in by staying at the Sopa instead of Gibbs.

Either way works ...

Bill

Bill,

I understand and appreciate your advice. I have posted an inquiry to the company and I'll undoubtedly have a reply tomorrow morning as they have been most helpful in responding to all my queries about logistics for the trip.

Rich

We're now deciding to eliminate a day at the beach (I hear that it can be very hot and humid on Zanzibar in Jan/Feb) and adding it to the safari. The company suggests another night at Ndutu to give us two full days there and we're still considering the last night at Ngorongoro Sopa but it will cost $200+ pp extra for the morning game drive and Sopa vs. Gibbs accomodation differential. At Gibbs we would take in a liesurely hike, village tour or other non-safari activity before departing for Stone Town via late flight from JRO.

Question, what makes a great safari? Is it the pace of travel, the expertise of the guide (how much do they vary for those that have had a variety of guides), the lodging/camp ambiance, luck (animal sightings, weather, etc.) or all of the above? How do they rank in order of importance?

Maybe I should have posted that on a new thread.

Thanks for your input.

Rich

Rich,

RE:What makes a great safari? i started a thread not so long ago called,
"Safari poll:what's important to you on safari"

There were various posts covering all the aspects you have mentioned....

Rgds,
Hari

http://www.fodors.com/forums/threads...p;tid=35026345

That's the link to the thread...

Thanks Hari,

Another good discussion relative to what makes for a good safari is in chacheetah's What Where How When? thread (to which you and Bill have contributed):

http://www.fodors.com/forums/threads...p;tid=35038706

So no-one seems to have anything to say about Summit Expeditions & Nomadic Experience (SENE)? Their offices are in Moshi and the references that they have provided have all been very positive - for both climb and safari portions. It does appear that they specialize in Kili climbs (more expensive than Good Earth, but less so than Tusker Trail or Kiliwarriors).

My wife and I (ages 50 and 52) are willing to have others join us for the climb and/or safari (will reduce the cost by $400 to $800 pp) so if interested, give it a look. I guess I should create a new thread with reference to the Kili climb.

Rich

My family (9 of us) stayed at the Tarangire Safari lodge, and absolutely loved it. It had a gorgeous view of the park, with tons of animals. The rooms were clean, not fancy, but this was actually one of our favorite places that we stayed. The dining area, reception area is all outside, very relaxing and great views. We had warthogs running throught our camp and a visit from an elephant family on a daily basis. We also stayed at the E unoto and it was great. The rooms were simple and gorgeous, the service, run by the Masaii was impecible, and it too had a beautiful view of the mountain and lake below. Have a great trip!

Thanks for your comments.

We're now waiting for confirmation of our bookings. Tarangire Safari Lodge and Ndutu Lodge have website availability pages that show full booking at this time for the dates we have scheduled. Our operator doesn't seem too concerned but I'll remain a little uneasy about Ndutu, in particular, until I see a booking confirmation.

I have suggested a change in the schedule to put Tarangire at the end (they show availability in early February, but not the last two days of January) so that we would start out at E-Unoto after a visit to Lake Manyara NP on the first day, then over to Ndutu for 3 nights followed by a night at the crater and finishing up at Tarangire. This may be better than trying to squeeze the morning game drive in the crater on the last day before departing for Zanzibar. We'd probably have time to do a morning game drive in the crater even if we stay at Gibbs Farm instead of at one of the lodges on the rim. And we can have a morning drive in Tarangire and make it in reasonable time to catch our flight.

Do you folks that know the Ndutu situation think that we'll need to wait until December to have confirmation of our booking request? What are the alternatives within the same relative price range? I have asked the operator how they will handle alternative back-up bookings?

Thanks for any further input.

Rich

I'm just bringing this thread up to date with our final itinerary as booked with SENE.

1/18 to 1/29 Climb Kilimanjaro
1/30 E-Unoto Retreat
1/31 to 2/2 Simiyu Tented Camp
2/3 Ngorongoro Farm House
2/4 Tarangire Safari Lodge
2/5 and 2/6 Beyt al Chai, Stone Town
2/7 and 2/8 Pongwe Beach Hotel

Ndutu was waitlisted and Tarangire was also waitlisted for the first safari day so we moved it to the end which works well enough to catch the flight to Zanzibar. We'll probably have just the one game drive in the crater, but maybe it is possible to go back from the Farm House to the crater on the 4th before driving to Tarangire?

We have flights booked, but are now working on an interesting airline snafu in our favor - the nwa.com website had first class bookings for domestic connecting flights with USAirways code share flights operated by United so I booked those back in July - same price as coach. Now of course when I go to get seat assignments the error comes to light. I mistakenly booked the return flight from Kilimanjaro instead of Dar es Salaam so I'm going to concede the first class error if they will waive the change fee (which they should do anyway to save seats on the short leg to DAR).

Can anyone report the likely capacity on the international flights? We fly there on Thursday/Friday and return on a Saturday/Sunday. KLM flies MD-11 planes to Kilimanjaro and a 777 from Amsterdam to SF, both of which have 3-3-3 seating so we took the two aisle seats in the middle section - to hope no-one selects our middle-of-the-plane seat.

We're looking forward to our adventure and I appreciate the great advice obtained in the various threads on this forum. I'll try to post a report of some sort for the record upon our return.

Rich

We're leaving the day after tomorrow. Thanks again for lots of good advice from everyone here - from cameras (bought a Panasonic Lumix FZ-18), tipping, accommodations and what to expect on game drives and in camp to the little things like t-shirts to give as gifts, insect repellents, fly swatters (got one today) - and the all important toilet advice.

Rich

Have a great trip! Please post your experiences when you return--and photos too, if you're so inclined.

Have a wonderful time!

Your departure is here at last! Have a marvelous trip.

Thanks. There's nothing like late night completion of trip preparations. The good thing is that it is morning in Tanzania so why sleep now?

Rich

How did it turn out?
I'm look at similar for Feb-2010 with SENE.

Well, how's this for a late trip report.

Van (vgroten) contacted me today through SENE (Summit Expeditions and Nomadic Experience) and shamed me into coming back online to post a report of our adventures in Africa last year. I'm sorry to be so tardy, but for anyone that is looking for information on SENE I owe it to them to say what a fantastic time Rachel and I had.

For a look at our pictures (too many, I'm sure, but it is hard to cull pictures when you remember the fun you were having when you took them), including a few albums of our hiking trips the year before to acclimate and get in shape go to www.picasaweb.google.com/richalbums.

Here's the first installment report (climbing Kilimanjaro) of our fantastic time in Tanzania with Simon Mtuy's company:

Flight from Chicago to Amsterdam was cancelled, re-routed to try to catch connection, but spent the night in Brussels - at least got jet lag out of the way (tip: avoid international connection through Chicago, especially in winter). And at least our bags found their way and arrived with us (another tip: plan at least one extra day for you or your bags to get there and do keep essentials with you on the plane.)

So we arrived a full day late at Kilimanjaro and so we missed a day of acclimation in Simon Mtuy's (SENE owner, Chagga tribesman guide) village of Marangu Mbahe. What a beautiful spot and lovely people. One young guy, David, older than the many children that followed us around, took an immediate liking to us as we toured the village. We didn't find out until two days later that he would be our lead singing porter as he greeted us at the trailhead at West Kili. His singing style was bongo flava, Tanzanian hip hop (see the pictures with some videos).

We drove around to West Kili to Simba Farm for another night. Lovely 1930's farm house and grounds at a working farm which felt like home but with a stunning view of Mt. Meru and fields of gold (wheat and sunflowers). Great food prepared by the farm house cook.

Our first days at Mbahe and Simba Farm were accompanied by one of our two guides, Emmanuel, and our highly skilled driver, Julius. Emmanuel began our safety health monitoring, pulse oximeter, breathing rates and urine sampling which would continue morning and evening until we got back to Mbahe village 9 days later. No other hikers were scheduled to join us so it would just be me and Rachel with the two guides, Emmanuel and Ayumwi (my age), a cook and 12 porters. We would meet Ayumwi and the others at the traihead (on the way there actually, as the bus transporting the crew couldn't pass a vehicle stuck in mud so they all had to do extra duty, carrying everything for several extra miles up to the trailhead). Julius found a logging road to bypass the roadblock and that was one of the more frightful rides of our lives.

When we hiked the last 200 yards or so to the trailhead, our little table and chairs were set up for us with what was a to be a fairly typical lunch for the entire climb of hot soup (freshly made), grilled sandwiches, a meat dish or chicken, salad, fruit and cookies.

After an interesting climb on a muddy trail through the forest - saw one spot where an elephant crossing the trail left his mark. We were fortunate to have good weather at this point since the trail would have been much more difficult in the rain. Arrived at our first camp around 9,000 feet to be greeted by David and our singing porters.

Our camping tent and personal toilet tent were set up every evening for us and we usually had a snack, popcorn and cookies, when we arrived at camp. We had hot water bowls for washing before every meal. Dinners were always excellent, various meat dishes, fish one night and always more than we could finish. One of our guides would join us in our separate dining tent which was sometimes set up for us for lunch too. The two guides used it for sleeping at night. The porters and the cook had two teepee tents. Breakfasts were great too. After being served coffee in our tent by our personal waiter, Robson, breakfast was usually eggs, bacon or sausage, toast and fruits (always cut and arranged with a flourish).

After 3 days we arrived in a bit of a snowstorm at Lava Tower at 15,000 feet. The poor weather prevented a climb. I was up for it even if a bit lightheaded, but Rachel was feeling the ill effects of the altitude a bit more - showing a poor appetite. I've always been the one to feel it, not Rachel, but I think she wasn't drinking quite enough water and I took some diamox the first day while she waited until that point to take some. She took so little I don't think it made much difference for her.

Next day was downhill through the forest of giant senecios and back up the Baranco Wall. That was fun, but none of the climbing was at all difficult. Pole pole (slow) is the pace so if you're in decent shape, it is only the higher altitude that makes it more difficult than other hikes. Our trip to climb White Mountain (14,000') east of the Sierras above Bishop, CA in early November was a lot more gruelling (15 miles - 3,000' up and back down with 20 degree temps on top) so the hiking on Kili was really pretty easy. It's just that we had never been much higher than 14,000' so we didn't know what to expect.

2 nights after Lava Tower camp we were back up above 15,000' at Barafu - a veritable city with daily transient occupants on a ridge below the summit. We felt good in anticipation of our climb up to Uhuru Peak (19,350') and Crater camp (18,500') scheduled for early the next morning. Everyone else at Barafu camp (we figured there were as many as 50 tourist hikers and an average of 5 or so porters and crew for each one of them (compared to our 7.5) at the camp - 300 people on the ridge for the night) left around midnight to climb about 4,000' to the summit in 6 or 7 hours and then retreat to camps at 11,000' or even 9,000' by the end of the same day. We were the only ones scheduled to camp in the crater below the summit.

I woke up with a stomach bug. Turns out that our cook became ill and later was sent down for care. No one else seemed to have caught it and I had some Cipro and pepto bismol which I took before getting up for breakfast. I wasn't sure I was going to be up to it. The guides kept from expressing any concern but they were privately quite worried that I wouldn't make it which would be their failure. Rain, sleet and snow from the time we broke camp to just below the rim, it was very slow going with very heavy breathing - Rachel was fine and just marched along as the guides took a very pole pole pace. I used yoga breathing techniques to focus the blood oxygen to my head and stomach (no headaches and no further stomach upset, please).

We made it to the top around 8 hours later. The adreneline must have kicked in because I felt great at the top. It was cold but we were at the top of the clouds so above any precip and had some occasional views of the glaciers around the summit freshly covered with snows.

The trail down to Crater camp is steep and there was a fairly sizeable snowpack on the northeast face where the trail is so when we got a ways down I ski-hopped down through an open snow slope but quickly felt the thin air.

Camping at 18,500' is an experience. It was cold (maybe 10 to 15 degrees) and we had some clouds so it wasn't bright and spectacular as it might have been, but the nearby Furtwangler Glacier was quite a view. We were fairly late getting down to the camp and our senses were pretty dull, otherwise, I would have wanted to take a walk over to the base of the glacier to see it up close. I don't even know how far it was and how long it would have taken to trek across the snow (there were a few foot trails through the snow so it wasn't out of the question). I regret that I didn't take the walk but the day had taken its toll I guess. Dinner was a special treat, as good as any on the mountain, and we kept up our appetite - I was finally feeling hungry again.

One thing that worried me in preparing for the trip was having to pee at night - having to get out of a warm sleeping bag into the frigid air, but even at Crater camp that wasn't too bad and although we were taking some diamox, we often slept through the night without having to get up. I got some night pictures, even early sunrise pictures on the morning of the summit climb when I wasn't feeling all too well.

With the long hike back down to our last camp at 11,000' we were up in the cold morning air early. David gave me a great bongo flava solo as we were preparing to break camp that morning - see the video. It was amazing how quickly you can get down nearly 8,000'. Trekking poles and hardy knees are at a premium.

After much singing and dancing at the bottom of the mountain at Mweka Gate, we drove back to Mbahe for a celebration dinner with the entire crew - dinner was a traditional feast.

Our fantastic safari with our guide Gerald Lemnge began the next day. I'll need to post a second installment to provide highlights of the safari. I'm not sure when I'll get to it, but the pictures tell most of the story.

If you want to contact me, write to [email protected]

What a success despite lots of setbacks, beginning with the delayed flight. Missing a day of acclimation is more severe than missing a day of a city tour or even a first night on safari.

On behalf of Chicago and its unpredictable winter weather, I apologize.

Thank goodness for yoga breathing techniques and Cipro. Even the bad weather and your stomach problems were no match. I can only imagine your disappointment, not to mention your discomfort, when your tummy was not cooperating. You outlasted the local cook and that's an accomplishment.

Your comments about middle of the night bathroom calls will be helpful for others with the same concerns.

Glad it went so well.

I'll look for the safari pics.