Nairobi to Cape Town tour, 75 days

Planet

Wildlife: We visit a number of conservation projects during our journey that support local communities and conservation initiatives directly. In Uganda for example, our clients have the opportunity to visit the Ngamba Island Chimpanzee Sanctuary which cares for rescued or orphaned chimpanzees.

Clients are also of course given the opportunity to trek to see mountain gorillas in Uganda or Rwanda. A large part of the fees for this goes towards conserving and protecting these magnificent animals and their habitats. In Kenya clients can visit Elsamere, the home of the Elsa Conservation Trust which has donated millions to wildlife and conservation projects and has an on-site conservation center.

In Nairobi, we sponsor a baby elephant, Kamboyo, through the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust and we visit this impressive education and conservation project during our trip. And in Namibia we stay at the Otjitongwe Cheetah Preservation Park which seeks to preserve the local cheetah population.

Waste: Before commencing the tour all our clients are provided with detailed pre-departure information which includes advice on traveling responsibly. Clients are, for example, advised to remove unnecessary packaging before leaving home and to take a re-usable water bottle instead of buying plastic bottles of water.

People

Friends & neighbours: On this trip we stay at small, locally run campsites and where possible buy our food in local shops and markets, thereby directly supporting local communities. We use local companies to run all our excursions; for example our trips to the Serengeti and Ngorongoro Crater are run by a company based in Arusha, Tanzania and they employ local drivers and guides.

We try to stay at campsites that also have a commitment to the communities they inhabit and we do what we can to further support their initiatives. For example the Meserani Snake Park in Tanzania started as a campsite but has become an integral and important part of the local Masai community.
The campsite organises guided walks to local Masai villages - the Masai villagers themselves are the guides and all the profits go to the villages. The campsite has also established a medical center for the local Masai community and this is partly funded by the profits from an on-site shop selling local Masai crafts. We have donated basic medical supplies to the medical center and have also made financial contribution to the project.

Volunteering & charity: In Uganda, our travelers have the option to visit Soft Power Education - an organisation that provides education to Ugandan children. Some of our clients have returned to Uganda at the end of their trips to undertake voluntary work here.

In Zimbabwe, we have become involved with the Hupenyu Hutsva Children’s Home in Harare, assisting this locally funded children’s home with regular donations of food. We came upon this Home by accident during a visit to Zimbabwe many years ago. One of our Directors was taking some supplies to a nearby children’s home and got a bit lost! He ended up at Hupenyu Hutsva by mistake and was impressed by what he saw, in terms of the staffs’ dedication and commitment.

The Home receives virtually no outside support as the children are older and not as cute and attention grabbing as the babies and toddlers of the Home nearby. We are very proud of our involvement with this Home as we can see the small differences we have made and we know that it has been important to them to just know that someone outside even cares about what is happening there. We have donated educational materials, bedding, clothing, sports equipment and computers.

In 2008 we also funded the installation of a borehole, enabling them to be far more self-sufficient in food production and enabling the children to learn valuable horticultural skills (our generous travelers donated seeds and gardening tools.)

Since 2007, we have run an annual 'Kids Week' event, using one of our trucks and 2 or 3 of our crew to take all the children and staff out on a series of day trips, finishing the week with a big party. Many of the children rarely leave the compound they live on so it is always a big adventure! We're never sure who it enjoys it most though, our crew or the children! Whenever possible our trips visit the Home. The children enjoy challenging our groups to a game of cricket or football and usually win convincingly!