Africa "The Bucket List Destination"

 
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Sanford Travel recently sent Team Leader Tom Brennan on an 11-day educational trip to Africa. Africa is one of those fabulous destinations that really needs to be ticked off everyone’s bucket list. We asked him a few questions about his trip to Kenya and Uganda.

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What was your favourite hotel and why? 

Easy – My favourite would have been “The Fairmont Mara Safari Club”. From the moment we landed at the small airstrip we were all so well looked after. On the drive to the Hotel we stopped along the way and spotted around 30 Hippopotamuses in the River. It was such a wonderful start to an amazing trip! 

The staff were incredibly friendly, upon arrival we were greeted with a very warm welcome. The accommodation itself was something else we stayed in luxury tents, or Glamping as it’s called. It was very comfortable and relaxing. 

We went Safari Game driving in the hotels 4 wheel vehicles it really was incredible. Afterwards we returned to the hotel for a delicious dinner.

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You went game driving in Masai Mara, tell us a bit about the experience and what was the highlight? 

The driver we had was very friendly and knowledgeable of the park and of all the many animals we encountered. We managed to spot 4 out of the 5 Big Game Animals in Africa; Rhino, Buffalo, Elephant, and Lion.  We only missed out on seeing the elusive Leopard. We were able to get so close to all of these animals and take some amazing photos. The park and scenery was absolutely stunning.

I finally got to tick something off my bucket list; the highlight of my trip was being no more than 3 metres away from a family of lions including their cubs. They are such beautiful creatures. Surprisingly, their behaviour is almost the same as my cats back home!        

What is one thing you will never forget?

Crossing the border by road from Rwanda into Uganda was quite exciting.  But for me the high point was the jungle trek in Bwindi Forest to see the gorillas in their natural habitat.  Within the forest there are seven family groups of gorillas.  Our group walked through quite dense, thick jungle and at times it was quite muddy. This added to the experience though.

We came across a family of five gorillas and were only situated a few metres from them. It was an absolute privilege getting to see such an endangered animal, with approximately 800 mountain gorillas left in the world. I will treasure this memory forever.