Mount Meru • Monduli Mountains • Mount Kilimanjaro • Ol Donyo Lengai • Longido
Other characteristics
Service levels
Luxury
Have a safari evacuation insurance policy
No
Have scheduled tours that individuals or small groups can join
Yes
Have private, custom-tailored tours
Yes
Type of vehicles
4 Wheel Drive
Type of accommodations
Home stay • Budget Camps • Mobile Camps
Able to accommodate tourists with special needs
Special diet
Language capabilities
English • Spanish
Tanzania' most experienced long distance horseback safari operator.
Explore spectacular and little known wilderness areas in the company of our experienced guides who are known for their personal approach and extensive knowledge of their areas and local culture.
User reviews
Average user rating from: 1 user(s)
Overall rating:
3.8
Guide:
4.0
Transportation:
4.0
Accommodation:
3.0
Meals:
4.0
Kilimanjaro - elusive like the leopard. Now you se
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful
Had we suspected even sneakingly that the gloriously unimpeded view down onto Kilimanjaro in the early morning sunlight we had from the aircraft as we hopped from Jomo Kenyatta International to Kilimanjaro International would be by far the best and indeed the only cloudless one we would enjoy during our week and a bit in Tanzania, we might well have been more awestruck and respectful. Had I had even the faintest inkling of just how ghastly a gustatory experience it would be, I might well have forgone the can of not quite cold enough Kilimanjaro lager I guzzled while gawping at the mountain, but, after overnight long haul in hot, insufficiently conditioned air and a couple of hours in equatorial transit, I was considerably more interested in beer for breakfast than I would usually be, and quaffing a Kilimanjaro over Kilimanjaro seemed like a good idea at the time. It wasn't, of course, but I should at least have paid a little more attention to the pictorial representation of Kilimanjaro on the can because even that was a clearer and more realistic view than we would have.
Pin and I were in Tanzania not, like everyone else, to attempt to hike up and down Africa's highest peak but, much more sensibly, for the Kilimanjaro Safari, an 8 night trail ride run by the Schovsbo brothers Jan and Tom from their farm base 30 km north of Arusha. It was Jan who met us at Kilimanjaro International and drove us west and then north, through Arusha, where all life is found on the verges between the potholes and the jacarandas, to Uto Farm. Jan told us there was somebody working for him who knew us. This was news to us. This somebody was Anna. We had met Anna the previous year while she was working for PJ and Barney at Okavango Horse Safaris in Botswana. In the meantime, she had moved on to work for David and Robyn in the Nyika in Malawi and had now found her way to Tanzania. According to the bush telegraph, David and Robyn have since left Malawi and joined PJ and Barney in Botswana. Equestrian Africa is a relatively small world. I think it was Einstein who said that.
Sitting 2000 m up on the northwestern slope of Mount Meru, the Cape Dutch style farmhouse with its white gabled walls and climber-clad verandah in between dates from 1937. We sat on the verandah watching the bee-eaters flying sorties from the garden chair backs and were made to feel very welcome and at home by Anna, Jan and Jan's dad. The house is surrounded by eucalyptus, jacaranda and avocado trees, a superb array of shrubs and lush lawns, and the verandah looks out towards the Rift Valley in the distance. It is impossible to resist trying to imagine the colourful conversations that must have taken place on this verandah over 70 years and, to judge from some of Jan's stories of recent contretemps and ongoing issues with various locals, most likely still do.
Other riding guests Mike and Lucy from Ireland arrived from Nairobi by shuttle bus and joined us on the verandah. We were also introduced to Albie Kloppers from South Africa, who would be our guide, and Mark from England, who, like Anna, would be helping with horses and hospitality on the ride. Brother Tom was in Barcelona, so Jan would be overseeing all the organisation and rustling up tiptop bush lunches for us on his tod. After a tiptop farmhouse lunch, we tried out a selection of horses in the paddock and picked our winners. In the late afternoon, Pin and I strolled down and up the farm drive accompanied by an extended family of ridgebacks and then nosed around the characterful farmhouse, carefully circumventing the whoopsies of the eight new additions to the family. In the evening, we were all back on that verandah again for sundowners before dinner. I was already developing a discerning boozer's palate for Safari lager, a distinctly more satisfying brew than the Kilimanjaro and, given how little we would see of the big K, the more fittingly named of the two ride-defining beers; and I am sure that Flaubert, himself a keen lager man, would have leaned towards Safari in preference to Kilimanjaro in his search for the mot juste to encapsulate in a nutshell the essence and flavour of our adventure. In point of fact, on several occasions over the course of the next few days, Safari lager would taste as exquisite as the finest Czech Pilseners. Jan may be half Danish, but I'm sure he wouldn't demur when I say that, after many years of painstaking research, I have come to the conclusion that a certain Danish lager is probably not the best lager in the world. On the other hand, Jan's ice-cold Danish Akvavit is quite possibly the best aquavit in the world.
The next morning, we set off on the ride, which follows a roughly circular route roughly within a rough triangle formed by Mounts Meru to the south, Longido to the north and Kilimanjaro to the east. The 7 day 200 kilometre itinerary would take us west from Uto Farm down onto the plains, past mud and thatch hut settlements of the Wa-Arush people (where we were pursued by a throng of little cherubs, yelling and throwing stones despite the best efforts of the local guide assisting our passage) and through acacia woodland to Lion Camp, at the foot of the Matissiwi escarpment; up the escarpment, some of the climb on foot, and north across open plains and then through thicker bush to Twin Hills Camp, with grand views of Mount Longido (Kilimanjaro too on a clear day - the day wasn't clear); east through sansevieria bush and dusty dry riverbeds to the Ngasurai plains, towards Kilimanjaro (visible directly ahead on a clear day - the day wasn't clear) and northeast to Kilimanjaro Camp; further east across the plains, into thicker bush and woodland again and then on the lower slopes of Kilimanjaro to Ndarakwai Camp; west through acacia savanna and euphorbia candelabra forest to the Dustiest Camp in Tanzania, and finally across open plains along the northern fringe of Mount Meru back to Uto Farm. Phew!
The remote bush country explored on the ride is a neck of the woods inhabited by only the Masai and an assortment of game. Both Masai and game are somewhat shy and cautious of parties on horseback but can be curious and inquisitive, and it is sometimes possible to approach to within quite a short distance. At lunch and siesta stops, we were watched from the bush, the distinctively coloured Masai fabrics occasionally showing through the trees, and a group of women humping unwieldy bundles of firewood passed very close by. If we could have understood anything of what might have been going through the heads behind the wary eyes of Masai and animals, it would doubtless have been along the lines of "these wazungu really are bonkers!" One day, we surprised some illegal charcoal burners at their clandestine work. Albie shouted authoritatively in Swahili. For all the burners knew, we could have been a crack troop of mounted rangers, and they didn't hang around to learn the much less frightening truth but fled into the bush so fast they left their machetes behind. Albie duly confiscated these.
Over the week, we had good sightings from the saddle of Thomson's gazelle, Grant's gazelle, kudu, gerenuk, eland, giraffe, zebra, and eventually elephant. At Lion Camp, we scoured the savanna and the flat-topped acacias optimistically with binoculars; we spotted no lions but we did see a black-backed jackal and a hyena with a cub. Game drives on the horses' day off took us close to elephant, zebra, wildebeest, vervet monkeys, impala, waterbuck and kudu. Vulture activity guided us to a dead zebra, from which a few prime cuts had been removed. Jan thought it had probably been shot and then hastily butchered and dumped.
The riding on the first two days was slowish because of the terrain, but the pace gradually increased, and by midweek we were cantering after zebra and alongside giraffe. By the end of the week, the canters across the open plains simply went on and on. The mainly thoroughbred horses behaved themselves most of the time, although Mark's horse Star appeared to be dictating pace and direction on some of the canters and jumped a goat one morning as we passed through a herd. July to November is the dry season, and it was late September, so dust was an ever-present fact of life, and Albie gave it a good bite on the second day when his horse misjudged some rough ground, lost its footing and toppled over. It was hard to conceive of anyone in the history of dusty people ever having been dustier than Albie was at that moment. Until we arrived at the Dustiest Camp in Tanzania, that is. We had had a fast afternoon, weaving our way through euphorbia forest, following a stream running through black mud, and then cantering along a bone-dry riverbed and finally through fine volcanic dust. And all in hot heat. When we dismounted in camp, we looked like a shift of miners clocking off. We soon forgot the grime, though, momentarily anyway, as it was here that we at last caught a glimpse of just the very tip of "Killy" above the clouds. It soon disappeared again, and none of us was particularly disappointed because we were all hellbent on being first in the shower without appearing pushy or rude. I shampooed my eyebrows and eyelashes.
The bush tucker involved no trials. There were full Tanzanian fry-ups for breakfast, and Jan's tiptop lunches were savoured in the shade: one day we even had fresh lake perch. The lunch Land Rover also brought chairs and siesta mats and coolboxes brimming with lashings of Tangawizi ginger beer and a healthy stock of Safari lager. Dinner was prepared by the camp cook, whose area of special expertise was soup, a different one every evening, and all delicious. Soups and meat courses were eaten seated around the campfire. When I say around the campfire, I actually mean at some distance from it. Jan's monster campfires are a far cry from the model Baden-Powell would have recommended for his Boy Scouts. Camp conflagrations would be a more accurate description. Elephant ensure there is a constant supply of firewood, and Jan doesn't waste any time or energy cutting the trees into kindling or logs but burns whole trunks instead (tree trunks, not elephant trunks!).
Almost as eye-popping as Jan's monster fires were Mark's monster gins and tonic, which were essentially all G with a dash of T. Nobody was surprised when the gin ran out before the end of the week. All the water for drinking, cooking and washing on the ride is brought from home in a bowser towed by the big back-up truck. As a direct result of the inevitable popularity of Mark's G&T as a thirst-quencher, nobody was surprised that there was no danger of the water running out.
Campfires do have a downside of course: singsongs. Fortunately, we had only one evening of vocal entertainment. On the second of our two nights at Ndarakwai camp, the group had had a day off riding and was clearly significantly less exhausted than usual. After Jan and the more youthful and flexible among us had demonstrated some skilful gymnastic tricks and games, the G&T took hold and Mike and Mark stepped up to the plate to perform. Mike is Irish, so his selection of The Wild Rover was understandable, and his reworking of the standard was passable. We nearly tapped our toes and hummed along. Mark's choice was far less predictable and conventional. First he gave us a reasonable and not too embarrassing rendition of The Boxer by Simon and Garfunkel. A little fast, but it is a long song, so this was probably a blessing. His second number was so unexpected it almost sobered us up: Rolf Harris's Two Little Boys. Unabridged. Unadapted. With no rude words or sexual innuendo. Not a wink either. Delivered entirely faithfully. And ever so earnestly. Good grief! Rolf may have been a childhood hero for many of us - everybody liked Sun Arise, Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport and even that silly song about the ladies of the court of King Caractacus passing by - and he may nowadays enjoy thoroughly justified albeit perhaps gently tongue in cheek cult status and celebrity for, among other classics, the wobble-board version of Stairway to Heaven, but Two Little Boys? Around the campfire? In the bush? We were stunned to silence, but I suppose it could have been worse. Mark could have chosen to give us his interpretation of Jake the Peg. With his extra leg! Diddle iddle iddle um. It was just as well the gin ran out.
Pin and I retreated to our tent with Two Little Boys and their toys going round and round in our heads. As I attempted to drown the tune with some vigorous teeth-brushing and to fade the image of Rolf wobbling his board out into darkness, I wondered whether the sentry posted at this camp would have to be extra vigilant as the singers had provided any hungry wild animals in the vicinity with ample incentive to come and eat us or he could relax, set his rifle down and doze even, safe in the knowledge that the caterwauling would have scared all but the deafest predators far off into the night!
After what seemed like much more than a week of riding and camping in the dust, we found ourselves back on the verandah once more. Normal G&T service resumed, and the Safari lager was still going down a treat. We were all quietly thrilled to have returned to civilisation, and I was literally itching to remove nine days' growth of grey beard. Jan said the stubble lent me an air of gravitas and wisdom, but Jan can be quite wry. All I could see was that it made me look like an old tramp and not necessarily wise. "Bugger the gravitas," I told him, and it was on with the soap and off with the fuzz. I shampooed my eyebrows and eyelashes again too.
The next day after lunch, goodbyes were said. Albie and Anna were heading into Arusha, Mike and Lucy were bound for Zanzibar, and Mark was flying back to Blighty. Jan dropped Pin and me at the gates of Uto Farm to catch the Impala shuttle bus to Nairobi. We were travelling on to join a horse safari in the Masai Mara. The Kilimanjaro challenge had been our starter for ten more nights!
by
Steve Moger, 2008.
