Travel reviews by Mr A & Ms M from Sante Fe

"Spectacular setting. Orynx' sleeping next to our porch. Great food and service. Probably our favorite lodge.

Drive from Windhoek is long with no facilities along the way. Some people might find that excessive if it's their first day. But it was worth it."

"Another spectacular location. Very different from Wolwedans. Not quite as isolated. We encountered many other groups around Dean Vlei and Soussesvlei.

It was very hot (up to 45C) so the pool was a great relief."

"Nice B&B very close to the center of town. Very helpful owner and staff."

"When you approach Doro Nawas, it's a pretty weird sight seeing what looks like Moorish castle on top of a hill. But it turns out to a well designed main facility with view rooms around the bottom.

We were lucky that our guide was able to find the group of desert elephants very quickly and we were able to follow them into the small village where there is a water tank. In addition, the village was holding its big celebration at the time. However, if the elephants had been somewhere else that day, it might not have been such an outstanding experience."

"We very much enjoyed our stay there. Great staff, good food and interesting other guests.

However, the rhino tracking has its limitations. There aren't many rhinos there so it may take a very long time to find one, The group the day before took 12 hours. We were lucky and the trackers found two less than two hours. It's an interesting experience getting out of the vehicle and following the trackers to get a good view but since you are not allowed with 100-150 meters, you will only see them at some distance. Nevertheless, the country is beautiful and we came across both desert elephants and a lion.

Also it's a very long safari vehicle drive from where you leave your car at the gate to the facility."

"In six weeks of traveling in Africa staying at 15 safari camps, this is the only one we were unhappy with.

Although we were warned by Chris McIntyre's book that the camp had variable reports, we did want to stay near the waterhole.

First, the staff was unfriendly, not knowledgable about Etosha and not helpful. We couldn't an answer to even simple questions like "is there a restaurant at Halali?" I suppose it's a reflection of the staff dealing with masses of people but we didn't have any such experiences elsewhere.

The food was really awful. The first night there was sufficient food but it was all cooked badly. The second night they seemed to have run out food. The trays that were full of food (rice, vegetables, etc) were almost all empty. Since we don't eat meat (which was not a problem at any other lodge), we were reduced to a dinner of rice and ice cream. At breakfast the next morning most of the food that had been there the previous morning wasn't there. When we got to Halali for lunch, we found that they had run out of a lot food.

Unfortunately, we didn't see much at the water hole while we were there and, as the book warned, there was a lot of noise from people talking loudly on their cell phones.

We did have some great sightings at the water holes in the park during the day so would have been much happier at a lodge outside the park."

"Great camp. Some of the best food we had in Africa.

Location let us be in an excellent camp and get back to Etosha in a few minutes."

"A very nice way to end our trip. Staff was excellent.

We have some mixed feelings as to Okojima as a destination. The area is not as scenic as a lot of the other places we visited and as Africat has (for good reason) made education its main mission, what visitors see is a lot different from what we had read about Okijima. There are not a lot of cats there and they no longer are allowed to roam near the main camp area. They are changing the camp to be a "plains" camp by removing nonnative plants. It all makes sense but as a tourist experience it's not what it was. But we enjoyed it and appreciate the dedication of Africat to deal with the complexities in the survival of large cats."