Flash Safaris Review
by Jan van Drooge
(Amsterdam, the Netherlands)
Group: Jaarclub Crenshaw, Utrecht
The highlight of the trip must have been the party with local people on a deserted spot at Zanzibar (of course, there was someone of the lodge who was guiding us. Don't do it alone...)
Jan and the Jaarclub's Safari Details:
Rating: 9/10
Safari company used: Flash Safaris and Photography Ltd.  (make an enquiry)
Parks visited: Arusha NP, Tarangire NP, Ngorongoro Crater, Lake Manyara NP, Zanzibar (east coast) - Tanzania
Date of safari: 9 October 2008 for 12 days
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Safari Company Performance
Magda and Felix of Flash Safaris and Photography Ltd are wonderful people who live for the work they love to do.
Always up to date, flexible, friendly and above all: not too expensive! (we Dutch like that!).
The crew is more than friendly, always good for a joke or a nice story!Accommodation and Food
We stayed at:
Karama Tented Lodge, Arusha.
Rhotia Valley Lodge, near Manyara.
Tarangire River camp, Tarangire NP.
Shooting Star Lodge (East Coast Zanzibar).
All very well, but Rhotia Valley Lodge was the best!
We always ate "local food" and sometimes even traditional dishes.
Breakfast means a lot of fruit and always some kind of eggs. Lunch boxes are superb (roast chicken, egg, a bag of chips - nice!). Dinners are perfect: always beef, chicken or fish. And sometimes even traditional dishes!
No Haute Cuisine, but tasteful and nutritious!Safari and Activities
A typical day would be something like this: wake up - always too early. Breakfast with the group. Last stories about last night ("who was the last one to put the lights out?"). Briefing - what's the plan for today. First Safari. Lunch round noon (nice!!!!). Second Safari. Back to the lodge, beer, beer, beer. Shower. Making ready for dinner. Beer round a fire. Round midnight to bed. Setting the clock for 6 a.m...
The wildlife: we saw it all. Too much to mention.
We visited a orphanage home for children whose parents died of AIDS (next to Rhotia Lodge!), we visited a small village with original inhabitants, dove and fished in Zanzibar, made a sailing trip with a dhow, did some partying with local people (great!)Tips and Advice
Travelling with a group of diverse people, who are used to some kind of luxury... 4 or 5 days safari is more than enough. After that time all wildlife looks the same, every Baobab is just another tree and every road seems longer and longer.
OH! And.. do visit Zanzibar as last!!!
My most useful items? I can give you a political answer: the splitter I used to recharge all my electronic equipment in one time. The less political answer must be my bottle of Whisky, when we ran out of cold beers in the night!!!Rating
9 out of 10 - there is always room for improvement. And you always want to dream about a day you have that 10!
There was nothing at all to disappoint us!!! (although, sometimes there was not enough cold beer ;-)Back to Index
