I like to express my appreciation of the way you organized our vacation. Timing was perfect, quality superb.
Special thanks for organizing Rose-Marie’s birthday: little present on dolphin cruise; at Mowani: welcome drink, cake, song.
 
Our pilot, Norman, did a great job. So exciting that I would like to learn piloting myself.
 
Short review of lodges:
 
Kulala: excellent lodge, extremely friendly manager (Thomas), the best guide (David)
Wolwedans: Rose-Marie’s favourite. We got to know a lot of people during the jointly dinners. Marvelous scenery. We got upgrade to the suite: unforgettable.
Swakopmund Guesthouse: very nice decorated room, however quite noisy street in comparison with the lodges. I guess that is inherent to the city. Very friendly management.
Dolphin cruise: mass tourism, I wasn’t my favourite but we enjoyed the seals and dolphins.
Mowani: my favorite, superb views, best sundowner, professionally managed
Onguma: very nice lodge, good food, lots of thunderstorms, interim manager is learning
Heinitzburg: awful decoration, excellent restaurant, no facilities for changing clothes before pick-up towards airport. I didn’t like it.
 
I will recommend naturefriends to my friends…
 
Thanks a lot.
 
Jan

We went on safari through Namibia from 28 dec until 4 januari 2009 with our family: Marjolein, Cassandra and Sidney with a Cessna 210 Pilot's name was Norman 21 years old.

I wanted to let you know that we all enjoyed our safari experience enormously and that we felt our pilot Norman was part of the family. For such a young pilot to take such responsibility and to fly so seriously was truly an eye opener we did not expect. Norman is a fantastic professional who we hope will achieve all his goals. He made our safari truly unforgettable in a very positive way and we would like to give our best wishes to him.

Next time we go to southern Afrika we will call in advance and see if he can fly us again. (Joburg-Pongola-Mozambique north coast and then on to Dar es Salaam?)

If we have friends or relatives going your way I would certainly recommend Norman/WestAir/NatureFriend Safaris.

I hope you will send this recommendation on to Norman's Chief and ultimate boss at WestAir.

Best regards, Dick van den Berg and Family

Hi Mate,
I wanted to thank you for your help in the organisation of our trip a few weeks ago. Everything was perfect. You did a great job! Friendly, reliable, patient, accurate though fast, client oriented and high
quality.
I'd like to put your boss in CC, but I don't have his e-mail address. I'm sure you wouldn't mind forwarding this mail to him.

Sincerely,
Guy, September, 2007
guy.vande.vyvere@nashuatec.com

Our flight to Windhoek went well and we met Soren just as planned. The Olive Grove was a very nice little hotel. It does seem to be popular with tourists and business people alike. We had dinner in the hotel the first evening and it was very pleasant. The second night we went to Joe’s Beer Garden and we did not think the food was all that great.

Our flight to Wolwedans went well and we loved the Mountain Suite. It was so nice just padding around from our bedroom to the living room. The meals were excellent and even though they served four courses, they were all small and we felt just pleasantly full at the end of the meal. Rosy, our cook, also acted as our valet, tracking down things like laundry when we needed it.

The scheduled balloon ride did not happen, but got scheduled for the next day, but from Sossusvlei and we had to get up at 3:30am instead of 4:30am in the original schedule. There was some confusion when the fellow who was to wake us knocked on the door a little after 3 am and said he would come back in a half hour and let us know if the balloon was going up today. Next thing I know it is about 10 minutes to 4am and our guide is there to drive us to Sossusvlei. We got it together, but it was just one of those little glitches.

We also liked the NamibRand Reserve. The dunes were spectacular and we have good footage of an Oryx standing on the edge of the red dunes.  I think these red dunes were responsible for a number of our extra landscape pictures. Taking the balloon ride from Sossusvlei allowed us a chance to see the big dunes, at least from the air and at a bit of a distance. I think I liked the smaller dunes with the grass them a little better.

The Hansa Hotel was pleasant, but it was still a hotel with busloads of German tourists that made getting breakfast a bit of a chore and one night we could not find a place in the bar for a drink before dinner. We loved the boat trip out of Walvis Bay. The Mola Mola tour company was very well run, out guide Billy was very nice and having a private boat was just great. We took lots of good photos of birds and seals. The lunch on the beach was nice, but a bit on the chilly side. They did have a tent with some wind protection that really helped.

Next stop Ongava Lodge and our least favorite place. You know how some places will just turn you off from the start, and then it just goes down hill from there. It started with the managers cell phone ringing all during our late lunch, and then you add all the steps to get to and from the lodge. The place was under going renovation, which it sorely needed, but the construction work took place during the afternoon game drive, so one day when we came back early, we just skipped going to our room and watched at the waterhole instead. The rooms did not look onto the water hole so even if they renovate them they would not be that great.

The water hole at Ongava Lodge was pretty good with zebra and Rhino to say a few. The only good thing about staying at Ongava was seeing lions just inside the park entrance on the way to Onguma.

I loved Onguma. The “tents” were so well planned. The closet space was well designed with a light was just above my duffle. The bathroom was spacious with plenty of room to set things down and best of all I could prop my head up in bed to see the waterhole. Seeing porcupines feeding next to waterhole was wonderful. I would have preferred three nights here; it was just that comfortable.

Kind regards
Bob & Joyce Daniels, March/ June 2007

Hello from Norway,
We have arrived safely home to Norway after a wonderful time in Namibia.
We have enjoyed our tour very much so thank you for helping us with a perfect itinerary.
Our compliments to Nico for his knowledge and kindness giving the trip an extra dimention. Hope to be back in your country in the future.

Kind regards
Truls and the Disen-party, March 27, 2007
truls@disen.no

Dear Anne-Mari,
it was wonderful.
Back in cold Austria, we like to thank you very much for the organisation of our tour. We enjoyed it very much, all was very perfekt Niko, the people in the lodges, including the group with John and Janette. Andrew is special as pilot, guide etc. He brought us very close to the thinking of how Namibia works and how to respect the nature and the animals. The only think we can do now, is to recommand you to all our friends. Thanks so much and kind regards from Austria

Herbert, March 22, 2007
herbert.schmalhardt@lrh-v.at

We had a fantastic holiday in Namibia - what an amazing country it is - You can not describe it to people in a few words. We do have the following feedback for you -

Hire Vehicle
We went to pick up the hire vehicle from the airport but found the car to be unsatisfactory because of -
- The rear of the vehicle, where our cases would be, was extremely dirty.
- the rear door would not lock
- The tool kit for changing the wheels was incomplete
- They could not provide us with a second spare wheel.
This was not a good start and we had to take this car into Windhoek to the MAIN office of Budget and then wait for another 30/45 minutes whilst they got a replacement vehicle ready for us.
This vehicle was fine and I am pleased to say that we did not have to test the wheel tool kit.The only issue we had was that the fuel guage was constantly showing full!!

Telephone
The guy on the Budget desk informed us that there was no point in having a satellite phone as the coverage was poor.
At this point we tried our Mobile phone and saw that it had a provider in Namibia. Therefore we took no additional action.
Most of the time we seemed to have a signal although this was not the case when we travelled further west.
We were able to text home but then found out that we could not ring a Namibia telephone number which could have put us in a very vulnerable position if we had broken down.

Accommodation
This was outstanding - how do they turn out those lovely meals when the lodges are miles from anywhere?
It is very difficult to select an outright winner but we thought Okinjima / Onguma & Mowani were fantastic and Wolwedans - of course.
Perhaps our least favourite were the 2 Wilderness Camps especially Ongava which was rather tired in appearance and the food was only average.This was not just our opinion as several people we met thought the same.
However, we are talking about comparisons with the other camps - all of them were fine, just most of them were outstanding.

Overview.
The pack awaiting us at the Budget desk was very useful especially the clearly marked directions on the map.
Mike felt that it would have been nice for a representative of the local travel agent to meet us at the airport and see us on our way.
However, only a minor point.
We had some very long drives but we both felt that travelling by road gave you a much better feel for the country.
4 wheel drive was imperative as some of the access roads to the lodges were not good and some of the grit roads leave much to be desired especially if it had rained - we were fortunate not to encounter any major problems.
We met some people that had left the car at Swakopmund and then flown down to Sossuvlei and Wolwedans they were then flying back to Swakop for there final drive to Windhoek- thought this a good idea as it is one hell of a drive from Wolwedans to Windhoek,also the roads from Swakop to Wol were perhaps some of the worst.
The scenic flight was amazing although it was a little bumpy coming back as the weather closed in.
We took off around 8.30 and flew to Ludedritz and the Ghost town and then did a tour of the latter. Then flew to Fish river Canyon , had lunch at Canyon lodge {lunch not quite as described in the blurb}and then drove to one of the scenic viewpoints.
Back to the plane and then flew back to Wolvedans. Arrived circa 6.00pm. Brilliant day but we both felt it was a little rushed.
The weather was pretty much as we expected and we saw some rain in the first few days but it never lasted long.
It got really hot when we reached Sossusvlie and Wolvedans { over 40c} .
The game viewing at Etosha was very good even though we did not see too many predators. We realise that the best time for Game viewing is in the months of June, July & August when it is drier. However, Etosha remains one of our favourite memories but is only one of many memorable moments in a truly amazing holiday.

We would both like to thank you for organising this trip for us and we look forward to returning to Hartleys Safaris for our next African adventure.

Kind Regards
Mike & Linda.

27 Feb - 03 March 07

Now to our trip to Botswana, what an experience! We loved everything.

Penduka staff greeted us at the airport and put us on a small plane to fly us to the camp. The pilot flew nice and low and we saw animals from the air, lot of fun. Our guide Johann picked us up at Xakanaxa and drove us to our camp. We were greeted by 2 more staff members, a cook and a helper and our camp was all set up for us. The safari vehicle was an old International Harvester Jeep, very roomy with roof top seating. Johann took us for an evening drive and we quickly realised that he was a very knowlegdable and personable guy, that has been with Penduka for 10 years. I couldn't get over how green and lucious the busch was with plenty of food and water everywhere. Johann was such an expenience guide, he would spot things in the green and the next day we saw our first male lion in the morning. We felt very lucky! After 2 nights at Moremi we had a long drive to Savuti. That day we experinced at lot of driving thru deep water and I was amazed that we never got stuck. Unfortunately a big rainfall got us as we had to set up camp and that was no fun. I am so thankful that we did not get more rain than that one evening. I know we lucked out because we heard it rained a lot before we got there and Johann emailed us that it has rained every day since we left.

Savuti was great, we saw lots of elephants and by then had gotten very comfortable with the camping and being in the bush. The crew took such good care of us and the food was incredible. After we set up camp in Chobe we did a 2 hour boat ride on the river. Very fun to see hippos from the boat and a little scary! We all liked it a lot. The next morning we parted with the Penduka crew and were picked up by a driver on the other side of the Zambesi who took us to the Zambesi Sun. As much as we like the safari all 4 of us were looking forward to the hotel and especially a real shower!!. We loved the hotel, the rooms, the setting, very tastefully done. Looking at the falls is always amazing, such a natural wonder! We walked up and down the trail many times and took lots of pictures. We also went on a little tour adverised as "Picnic on the Island". You take a quick boat ride from the Livingstone Hotel to an island right next to the main falls. The main attraction is not the view and the picnic, but a swim in a natural pool on the edge of the main falls. We didn't know that and did not wear swim gear, but Silke and Simone did it anyways in their clothes and loved it. I was scared watching it, since they had to swim a little ways in the Zambesi River with a strong current. We filmed everything and it was amazing! Nobody in the US would ever allow this for liability reasons!

Rikus Visser

Getaway Africa

'Making your African Dreams a Reality'

Tel: + 27 21 55 45 963

Fax: + 27 21 55 44 704

www.getawayafrica.com

Dear Sir,

we would like to express our deepest satisfaction  about your staff Cowboy, Gladys and Merka.

They accompanied us from July 18 to July 28, on our safari through Moremi, Savuti and Chobe. We were very well taken care off, served and spoiled with everything available and makeable.

Cowboy is a very good guide, top experienced and absolutely professional in finding the animals.

Gladys is a very good cook, we took weight, because some resting in between influences appetite and no physical movements is in favour of it.

Merka is a decent and very friendly and helpful assistant, making our stay always very pleasant.

We wish them all the very best for their future life within penduka safaris career and of course for their personell relations.

We will recommend penduka to everyone in Germany, who is interested in going to Botswana.

Thanks and kind regards,

Wolfgang, Gisela and Stephan Sydow,

Goldregenweg 5, D 21220 Seevetal, Germany.  

Liebe Frau Kürz,

gesund und glücklich sind wir wieder zurück. Wir wollten Ihnen hiermit mitteilen, dass Penduka eine Organisation ist, die man nur wärmstens weiter empfehlen kann. Wir hatten eine wunderbare Safari, nicht zuletzt durch unseren Führer, Mike Harris, ein sensibler, immer gut gelaunter, im Busch best informierter Mann.

Zur Beachtung möchte ich Ihnen nur folgendes mitteilen. Im uns zugesandten "Reiseverlauf" steht "Camping auf meist luxuriösen Campingplätzen". Dies könnte bei nicht informierten Leuten falsch aufgefasst werden. Es gibt keine luxuriösen Campingplätze (und wir waren heilfroh darüber), das Camp wird in der Wildnis aufgeschlagen mit einem Duscheimer pro Person und einer Zelttoilette. Von unserem Führer wissen wir, dass die Erwartungen von vielen Leuten ganz anders´ sind und die nachher enttäuscht sind, keinen "Luxus" vorzufinden.

Wir waren dagegen begeistert von den Buschcamps. Die Crew hat ausgezeichnete Arbeit geleistet, das Essen war vorzüglich und mehr als reichhaltig.

Bitte teilen Sie unsere Begeisterung Frau Nennstiel mit, mit der ich mich ja am Telefon unterhalten hatte.

Mit freundlichen Grüßen

Chris und Michael Runge