March 14, 2020 To April 10, 2020
These dates are important because our group was the first and only Hosted Africa tour to be run for this year! 2020 will forever be remembered in history as the year of the Coronavirus (Covid – 19) Pandemic!
We were right in the middle of all this, but still had the most amazing experiences and an extraordinary adventure of a lifetime! We experienced 5 star accommodations, excellent food and service everywhere we went. The staff, guides and trackers in the different bush camps could not have been more professional and caring. They did everything they could to make sure we had the best adventures, saw all the animals we wanted to see while keeping us safe at all times!
The safaris and animals were more amazing than we could have imagined! We saw the big five and everything in between, and the most amazing thing was that the animals were so close!! I have seen many pictures of these big animals on safaris but always thought that the pictures were taken from afar with a zoom lens, but no…the animals were so close that you could almost touch them! We will never forget this experience and all that we saw in South Africa.
We also need to mention and cannot say enough about how Ronnie and Dee organized and ran the tours. They are so easy and pleasant to travel with, they had everything running so smoothly that all we had to do was show up at the right time! Best of all we had a lot of fun and many laughs along the way.They genuinely care about their groups so much so, that we became like family!
The sad part was that because of the pandemic, our trip was cut short by six nights and we had to miss going to Cape Town and Stellenbosch. However the way that Ronnie & Dee handled the situation was nothing short of amazing! Their knowledge and understanding of South Africa and the contacts that they have there made all the difference in keeping us safe and healthy through all of this turmoil.
We were at the Simbavati River Lodge on March 25th when we heard the news that the South African Government was shutting down the country for 21 days on March 26 at midnight! Ronnie & Dee somehow found our group of 13 last minute transportation to a small airport and booked us on the last flight going into Johannesburg! Unfortunately, we were not able to make it out on any of the last flights to leave Johannesburg that day. This meant we ended up having to stay in Johannesburg for 15 nights as the Canadian Consulate worked on getting us a repatriation flight home to Canada. However thanks to Ronnie and Dee’s persistence and hard work (it was no easy task to get us the paperwork we needed to have all 13 of us moved from the airport hotel), we ended up at a small boutique hotel, where we were safe, well taken care of and the staff became our friends!
This experience and the things we learned from this adventure will live with us forever!
We have traveled extensively but South Africa and the beautiful animals will stay in our hearts forever. We will certainly go back with Ronnie & Dee to finish our trip and experience more of South Africa!!! We can’t thank them enough for all they did and how caring they were throughout our trip.
