All we hoped for and more
Little of safari pre-planning makes as much difference in the end as your guide. More than everything else, he determines the quality and character of your experience.
I want to give well earned credit to Willium “Willy” Mollel, our guide throughout our adventure. He is a remarkable young man who earned our respect many times over. He had a genuine concern that our experience be as good as it could be, and that we were comfortable and safe throughout. He really wanted us to see it all, and took great pains to make that happen. When a chance to see something was missed, he was more upset than we were.
His knowledge of the environment is encyclopedic. He could give you the names of any plant you saw. His knowledge of the animals is enormous. For example – and this happened more than once – he pointed out a bird in a tree as being an immature male specimen of some variety. I, having done enough reading to be primarily dangerous, argued the point, insisting that it was a type of eagle. Willy would pull out a book, flip through the pages and point to exactly the specimen we were viewing. He was always right.
And his eyesight! He could spot things that I using binoculars would struggle to find even after he told me where to look. It made all the difference.
He is a man of intelligence, good company, a charming, trustworthy human being, with a clear, ethical sense and concern for his country and its assets. His wife is a teacher specializing in early childhood education, and he is very proud of his 5-year-old son Roy, a budding tennis player.
I give credit to the folks at Access 2 Tanzania for having Willy as one of their representatives. He does them proud.
“Access 2 Tanzania was awesome! Visiting Africa and going on Safari was on my bucket list and A2T fulfilled it completely. My husband likes spontaneity but I insist on long term planning so when my husband told me he wanted to go to Tanzania in just over 3 weeks I laughed. Two days later he came to me with a plan that Casey and he put together. I was dumb-founded. It was not a canned tour planned by A2T for a group. It was a private itinerary planned by my husband and Casey to accommodate exactly what WE wanted to do and where WE wanted to go. We left for Tanzania 3 weeks later! Amazing!
We changed plans many times after the initial plan and Casey was very patient and accommodated us with no resistance. Casey always had answers to our questions and gave us recommendations that we would never had thought of. A2T didn’t just give ‘lip service’ they provided what they said they would and told us what they could not. I questioned this because they offer so many wonderful options and I wondered what we would actually get when we arrived. Another thing I was pleased with is that during our planning Casey did not constantly try to ‘up sell’ us.
‘Wilfred’ was our guide and he was wonderful. He is such a nice, good and fun person. We felt so lucky to have him. That said, we spoke to others from A2T and they also felt the same about their guides so it is clear A2T chooses their guides carefully. (We still feel lucky to have Wilfred throughout our safari!)
I wish I could remember the names of all the others that we met and who helped us from A2T. We didn’t run into one bad seed. It’s been 5 months since we returned from Africa and although the names are not clear in my mind the warm, wonderful and exciting feeling of Africa will never fade.
If you have the opportunity to go to Africa go with Access 2 Tanzania! AMAZING!!”