Overall, we had a sucessful Tanzania adventure with Zara Tanzania Adventures. We did their thirteen day Kilimanjaro trek (via the Machame, or Whiskey, route) and Serengeti safari package. We made it to the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro and we saw the "Big Five" (plus dozens of other wonderful animals) on safari. But there were a few times when we thought, "This could be better."

Touring the Zara way is all-inclusive. You stay at Zara-owned hotels that are strategically located far away enough from a town that you have to eat at the hotel cafe and buy water and chocolate from the hotel shop. Those meals and shop purchases, however, are not included in the price of the tour.

We did not like the food. Both on the mountain and on safari, the Zara cooks attempt Western foods to please their American and European clients. But we would have been much happier with the beans and rice the porters ate. We live in Africa and we like the local foods. It was disappointing to have pizza and spaghetti shoved down our throats every night. Also, I cannot eat gluten and I was assured when we made the reservation that my dietary need would be no problem. Even with bringing my own pasta and bread there ended up being little I could eat. (I fortunately brought plenty of my own snacks.) It was almost as if they didn't believe in 1) food allergies and 2) Americans liking African food. The cooks downright refused to listen to us. One last complaint: the coffee. Tanzania is home to some of the best coffee in the world, but even in the hotels Zara serves instant coffee.

In other areas, Zara takes good care of its clients. They picked us up at the airport and arranged for or transportation back to it. The hotels and camps are nice: clean and comfortable. Sometimes the seclusion is a good thing, when all you want to do is relax in the garden with a drink, watching the birds. Once you get over the fact that no shower in Africa lives up to U.S. standards, a hotel stay is downright pleasant. We had private guides and dining tents for the Kilimanjaro trek and a private truck and driver for the safari. Yet we had just enough socialization with our fellow trekkers and travellers at the campsites and hotels.

From what I can tell, Zara Tours is probably at the lower end of mid-range pricing so we probably got exactly the level of service we paid for. The price did not include the exorbitant tip our Kilimanjaro guide demanded or the generous tip we wanted to give our safari driver.

In the end, the wonders of nature we saw along the way, plus the feeling of satisfaction we got from the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro, cancelled out most of the negative aspects of the trip. 

Read about the trip at my blog, labels Kilimanjaro and safari 

I write about life in Africa at Where in the World Am I? and I blog gluten-free at What I Eat.