Dream guide
He was a fantastic guide for us. Raymond seemed to have eagle eyes, he could drive and spot animals that we could barely see! Once he used his binoculars to verify the animal, he would give us landmarks so we could find the animals with our binoculars. Sometimes we could drive closer to view the animals. He was good at explaining to us what his strategy was going to be when we would be caught in a safari vehicle jam like watching the wildebeest crossing. He knew where to drive to find animals. The advantage of the day long drives was that we could find more animals in their natural habitats without experiencing the safari jams by driving farther away from our hotels/camps. He arranged our meeting times for the next day after dinner. We had plenty of food in our lunch boxes to eat and cold beverages in the car cooler to drink. When I expressed my concern about our lunch entrees not being refrigerated to minimize stomach problems, he made space for them in the cooler. He made sure we had periodic toilet stops throughout the day. He cleaned the vehicle daily. We appreciated having double cushions on our seats when the ride was rough. He had toilet paper rolls on the tray so we could bring our own toilet paper to the bathrooms.
“Overall, we had a very good impression of A2T as a company. A2T had been undoubtedly very customer-oriented, which was evident from the very beginning of the tour, that is, booking. The extra mile A2T spent on calls to understand our requirements and then come up with the final itinerary was ver assuring. Later we almost had to backtrack from the trip due to Ebola concerns, and the extra time allowed for us to make the final decision was very helpful.
Later on during the trip, we had a special situation which required overnight usage of electricity. Our guide, Mussa, and Stella from the Arusha office really reached out to resolve that issue by sending a charger from Arusha to Karatu. The solution was impressive (also unexpected), and it became just another good example of A2T’s emphasis on customer services.
Our guide, Mussa, was great. We all liked him very much. I will talk more about him later (assuming there is another column to discuss).”