In May 2023 Sylvia and Alistair Bell from New South Wales went on a fabulous trip to Africa, taking in the gorillas in Rwanda, Giraffe Manor and an unforgettable safari in Kenya. We asked Sylvia to tell us about her bucket-list trip…
My husband, Alistair, and I have been to Africa a few times. We first visited Kenya about 30 years ago, we went back to Africa on our honeymoon 27 years ago, and we went to South Africa eight years ago.When we rang up the guy who organised that last trip to help us with another African holiday he told us he was no longer in business, but to contact his friend, Jono. So that’s how I got in touch with Jono and his wife Danica from Encompass Africa
And oh my goodness, we had the most unbelievable experience with them. Unbelievable. I can’t believe that not a single thing went wrong. Everything was just meticulous. It was quite extraordinary, I mean this is Africa we’re talking about; things don’t always go smoothly!
It all started when I spoke to Danica and she said: ‘Tell me about your dream safari.’ I listed all the things that I wanted to do – and she arranged it all.
Top of the list was trekking with gorillas, but I’ve got really bad lungs so didn’t think I’d be able to do it. Danica, however, said it would absolutely be possible… and it was. Our first stop was Rwanda and literally the next day we hiked to see the gorillas.
It was a long hike and we did struggle with it, but it was fabulous and I’m really glad that we did it. It was everything I’d ever dreamed it would be. It was… unbelievable. It was just indescribably fantastic.
We were so close to the gorillas; like, a metre away. They are massive. At one point one of the Silverbacks charged towards my husband. And he literally got to rub shoulders with a Silverback Gorilla. I spent most of my time photographing a little baby, and we also saw twin Blackbacks, which is apparently really rare. We managed to get a fabulous photo of them together which the guide said had never happened before. It was just amazing.
From Rwanda we flew to Nairobi in Kenya, where we spent a night in Giraffe Manor. Before Africa we’d been in the UK to attend our godson’s wedding, and when we were planning our trip, I convinced my husband that Giraffe Manor was on the way home. Which it soooo isn’t! But hey, we got there!
Giraffe Manor is incredible. It’s like something out of Alice in Wonderland; so weird and pretty… and then add giraffes! We got the classic shots of us having tea with the giraffes peering through the window. We even had our own personal butler to take care of us.
From Nairobi we flew to the Maasai Mara, to Governor’s Camp, where we stayed at Il Moran Camp for four nights. It was really, really beautiful: under canvas but very high-end. We went on lots of fantastic game drives, and even did a hot air balloon ride. Again, it was incredible. This really was my bucket-list trip. It was extraordinary.
From the Maasai Mara we flew north to spend two nights at Solio Lodge in the Solio Game Reserve, which is a rhinobreeding sanctuary in Kenya. They have more than 200 black and white rhino living here; you’ve never seen so many rhino. I’d only ever seen one black rhino in the distance before; nothing like this. It was extraordinary.
