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Return To Customer Video Testimonial Profiles Page
Name: Joshi Family
Occupation: Owner, Nuts About Ice Cream, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania
Date of testimonial: January 2007
Tour: Tanzania safari - Serengeti, Lake Manyara & Ngorongoro Crater
Click here to watch video for Joshi Family
Hi!. I am Joshi [and I am Ro]. We own a small business in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania called "Nuts About Ice Cream" (website: www.nutsabouticecream.com/). We used Raza's services with AfricanMecca Safaris and we were on a safari this past December (2006). It was a family outing. It was a trip that we had planned on for many many years which finally occurred. And we are both originally East African residents and we knew where we wanted to go and what we wanted to see and what we wanted to do. We had done quite a bit of research and then we happened to get in touch with Raza here; and we talked to him; we interviewed him and we were determining what kind of services we could get and we noticed that genuinely he was interested in making sure that we had an experience of a life time because when you go to Africa and you spend all the money to get there and when you don't see the natural game and wildlife that you went for then its pointless to spend all that money if you don't have the right people helping you. So we used Raza and we were just thrilled. [Wonderful]. Wonderful time. We saw everything we wanted to see [plus more]. We had the proper tour guides with us that came with Raza's recommendation. The locations were picked by them as to where we should go and at what time of the year. The game was migrating in that area at that time. It was in our opinion it was something that ... you know everybody says go on the internet and you can find all these things but you still need somebody who lives there, who knows what the conditions are like on a day to day and who can guide you and give you that personal touch. So we were just very very thrilled at our experience, what we saw. The guides of the facilities, the accommodations because at the end of the long day of a safari you want to come back and relax and enjoy yourselves. You want to have a good meal, dinner and everything was just perfect. We couldn't have asked for... tell them how you are vegetarian. [I am vegetarian and they really went out of their way to make sure that I had proper meals and delicious food. We were really happy with that].
We started our safari. We flew into Nairobi, and spent the day there and into Arusha. We took a shuttle into Arusha and then our guide met us there on the first day and took us to our first location, which was a tented camp, close to Lake Manyara. And we were just thrilled that on our first day into lake Manyara we saw a wild elephant charging, and this is where guide experience said just stay calm, stay, don't move, shut the vehicle off, and the elephant came by and just looked and said that these guys look harmless and walked away. That is the way our safari started.
The next day we were in the Serengeti plains. We went to Ndutu Lodge. We had an early morning game drive. We come to a lake bed where we see a lion and he is all by himself and another 50 yards further we saw a lioness all by herself and our guide suggested that we stay there for another 20 minutes - 30 minutes; because he said it was the mating season and he said that it was rare to see a male and a female all by themselves so he was sure that they were in a mating ritual; they were just taking a break. While we were sitting there, a lot of safari vehicles came by. They looked at the lion; they looked at the lioness and off they went. Must be in that 10 minute time period, 10 vehicles came and left. Well after they left we saw a whole mating scene that occurred in about a minute. We have that on our video tape if any body wants to see it. But there is where the experience of your guide; you are paying for a person who has that knowledge, that experience, that 20+ years of being out in the safari business to take tourists to see. This is what you came to see. you didn't come to just see a lion sitting there and a lioness sitting there. You could see them in a zoo. But you want to see the natural environment and what happens. We were just amazed that all the safari drivers, guides just left. They didn't wait to see what was going to happen.
So as our days went by, we went to serengeti plains; two days we spent in the Ngorongoro Crater area and again based on our guides experience he had us at the right spot, at the right time. We saw a family, a pack of lions, about 10 odd lions with cubs and we saw several cheetahs. When we went back to our lodge, we asked our other safari visitors, what did you see today, half of them hadn't see anywhere close to what we had seen. We were very thrilled that we were fortunate enough to have the proper guidance, proper tour guides with us, with the help of Raza and his team. So I can't.. both of us. I guess we can't say enough about our experience.
Joshi Family, Owner, Nuts About Ice Cream, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania
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