West Africa tour, Bissau to Cotonou

Hi Rick,

Thanks for taking the time to submit a review. We’re really glad you enjoyed the trip and found the cultures of the region interesting.

Regarding the hotels, these are unfortunately not comparable to the accommodations available in the more more popular tourist destinations in east and southern Africa. West Africa is underdeveloped and in the most remote parts of this trip there is little experience of tourism. This is reflected in the infrastructure and maintenance, with hotels not always being of as high a standard as we would like. We opt for the best possible option in each location -
outside of capital cities where we tend to use 4* instead of 5* - in terms of reliability, comfort, cleanliness, and location, but this still doesn’t mean a 3 or 4* hotel in West Africa can be compared to a 3 or 4* hotel here in the west, or in other parts of the continent. We do try and prepare our travellers for this in the information we send out and do mention that local conditions can sometimes be difficult and different to what we may be used to, and we find that the majority of our travellers are actually pleasantly surprised that hotels are better than they expected - although expectations do of course depend on individual travellers and what they may have experienced in other parts of the world.

We’re really sorry that you found the accommodations to be below the standard you expected and we hope that this didn’t impact too heavily on your overall enjoyment of the tour and the experiences that come with travelling through such an interesting part of Africa. If there are any specifics we should be aware of, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with us directly, as we really value our travellers’ feedback and will always make improvements where possible.

The itinerary and accompanying information that we send out includes the most useful and relevant points, covering everything we believe our travellers need to and would want to know. If we included every last detail that we receive from our local teams in destination, the itinerary can become unwieldy and overcomplicated, and we have found this to be inappropriate in the past as we don’t want to overwhelm our travellers with pages and pages of minute detail and sometimes undecipherable information from our local teams. However, we do appreciate your comment about the tents and we should have included this in the trip information. Whilst the camp is a fixed tented camp, and doesn’t require you to camp in the traditional sense, we do understand that it would have been useful to have been provided with more detail about this and we will be sure to include this for future groups. We appreciate you bringing this to our attention, thank you.

We’re sorry you found the itinerary to be more difficult than expected and hope you were able to manage. We mention in the trip documentation that you do need to have a reasonable level of fitness to join this trip, and that you should be prepared for exploring on foot. We try to be as explicit as possible about the challenges that travel in this part of the world entails and have included a paragraph on our website and in the tour documentation which tries to manage expectations before a traveller books, stating:

This is a pioneering trip through one of the least developed parts of the world and so you must be prepared for flexibility and changes to the itinerary if necessary. We most definitely do not recommend this trip if you like rigid plans, 4 star hotels, good roads and well defined ‘tourist sites’ – this is a very adventurous trip through a remote part of the continent, where infrastructure is not great, things change frequently and you can expect a certain amount of
discomfort at times.

We also mention that travel in this part of the world can be rather tiring due to the poorly maintained roads in this part of the world, and the sometimes long distances between key sites. I will have a look at our country notes and website to see if there’s anything else we could possibly add to better prepare our travellers for the trip, and to help them when making a decision on whether the trip is right for them.

Regarding the speedboat trip to the Bijagos Islands, we regularly run this - with some of our team here in the UK having also made this journey - and haven’t experienced any issues regarding the driving speed before. We’re sorry to hear you were uncomfortable and will certainly talk to our local team about this, mentioning that the drivers need to maintain a comfortable speed and be more considerate of the people on board.

Armstrong is a guide that we regularly use for our trips in this region, as he’s very experienced and always receives good feedback. We’re so pleased you found this to be the case also, and will be sure to pass on your comments. Regarding his management of the group, this is something that our guides cover in their training and which they have shown to improve in over time. We sometimes find that cultural attitudes in this part of the world mean that local
guides sometimes find it slightly difficult to take a position of authority when leading a group of western tourists, especially a more mature group of tourists, as people in this region are brought up to respect their elders. We will continue to work with our guides on this and do understand that it’s important for a guide to have the confidence to handle a variety of different situations that may arise within a group.

It’s a little difficult to focus on conservation and environmental impact - as we do on some of our other tours - in a region that is so far behind in this respect. Environmental thinking is not at the forefront of everyday life here and whilst we ask that our groups don’t contribute to these issues, and travel responsibly, you will have likely come face-to-face with the realities of travelling in the region, such as a lot of litter in places. We do what we can in terms of benefitting the local people and economy, though, by employing local guides, local transport providers, and by using small locally-owned accommodations where possible. Not providing a western guide to accompany our groups keeps carbon emissions down and means you’ll always be provided with first-hand knowledge by a local guide that knows the destination/s inside out.

We want to assure you that we have taken all of your points on board - both positive and constructive - and will make improvements where possible for future groups. We really do appreciate the time you have taken to provide feedback about the trip and hope you have taken away some special lasting memories of this very special part of Africa.