Maningo had immense depth of knowledge having been a guide for over 25 years. Even with all that time doing the job, he was as eager as we were to get out and watch animals live their lives. He answered most questions from his own experience but also paid attention to what other guides and youtube videos said about possible animal behaviors. He knew many many guides and they all help each other to optimize the viewing for their clients. Even with just an iPhone camera that has only a 10x telephoto lens, I got great photos, thanks to Maningo knowing how to work with those limitations. He showed us not only the big charismatic animals but also the lesser known but fascinating ones e.g. rock hyraxes which are elephants’ closest living relatives but are the size of bunnies. He was very knowledgeable about birds too. He also identified plants, such as a date tree growing wild. He anticipated road conditions affected by the weather and worked around it.
“Excellent staff. Casey was extremely responsive in planning the trip. I had certain things I did and didn’t want to do, he tailored our experience accordingly (and with keeping our budget in mind). The trip was perfectly proportioned, mostly because of him. Our guide on the ground, Wilfred, spent 12 days with us. We couldn’t have asked for someone better. We became comfortable companions, easily sitting together in silence over long drives or telling stories during dinner. He didn’t wait for us to ask something, he anticipated our needs. When he saw we didn’t finish our lunch boxes, he asked us what we liked and didn’t like. He made sure to relay the information to the hotels and we finished out lunches going forward. He saw I had an itch to get into the Wildebeest migration. Even though it was far away and our chances of finding it could be small, he made sure it happened. The staff set everything apart, especially when we compared it to our tour companies we saw in the area.”