Benjamin P.
Google
DO NOT VISIT AT THIS TIME UNTIL THEY SORT OUT THEIR ISSUES.
I should add that I rarely do Google reviews, but this is worth a warning.
This place is a total scam run by crooked people.
We were camping at Maasai Giraffe camp in mid December.
The camp was nice and Yaro was helpful, we had lots of car issues and he was really helpful with them.
Nevertheless, we have been travelling Tanzania for a month and this was the only place where we left feeling angry because there was a very strong sense that everyone was trying the hardest to get as much money out of us as possible.
We were well prepared for the various fees and understand that the TAWA fees are not an ideal arrangement for the local community. But we paid this all in cash, no passport numbers were taken, no receipt given, no proof at all that it went to where it should have done. We have entered quite a few WMA and national parks and know this is really irregular as all fees need to be paid on card to stop corruption. We also passed no gates as we went from Serengetti to Namanaga but still had to pay 70 dollars.
We paid all the community fees, activity fees and then were asked for 50 more dollars as a community fee and that we must tip people.
Furthermore, it is the first time I have used PayPal and only done so to pay you. We have just been hacked on PayPal. I strongly suspect this is related as it has not been used anywhere else.
Speaking to anyone on the route, they say to to avoid Natron because you'll end up practically robbed. We have to say we agree. If you want your camp to succeed then you will have to do something. You cannot have people consistently asking you for money even when you are in the camp itself.
There must be better ways to support the community with the over 300 dollars we spent staying there for two nights?
