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A family run safari company in Tanzania, and Tanzania is our home

Karibu, we would like to show you around our country

A family run safari company in Tanzania, and Tanzania is our home

Karibu, we would like to show you around our country

The strength of two different cultures

It started with an internship. In 2008 Selma came from the Netherlands to Moshi, at the foot of Kilimanjaro, to work there as a trainee nurse. She stayed longer than planned, because in Tanzania she met Ngomi, born and raised in the country, a guide and a zoologist. A year later she moved for good, and together they started a new life, and a business. In 2010 they founded Makasa, from the kitchen table. And it turned out that the difference between them was their strength. Ngomi knows the country from the inside, the animals, the places, the people, and he speaks the language of the Maasai and of the guides. Selma knows the other side, what a traveller coming from Europe or North America cares about, how you organise a trip down to the last detail, and how you make sure someone feels at ease thousands of miles from home. The Tanzanian who takes you out into the country, and the Dutch woman who arranges everything.

Ngomi, born among the animals

Ngomi grew up in Tanzania, among the landscapes and the animals he would later show to travellers. His love of nature started young, and at seventeen he was already guiding his first guests through the wilderness. Guiding was in his blood, he knew the animals, he read the landscape, and he told the stories of the savannah as though he had come out of it himself.

Driven by that love of nature he went further than guiding alone. He studied zoology in Texas, in the United States, and with that knowledge of animal behaviour and ecosystems he returned to Tanzania to do research and to work in conservation. You hear that background on safari, because Ngomi does not only explain what you are seeing, but why an animal does what it does.

In the years after that he trained countless Tanzanian guides, and passed on to them the same knowledge and the same respect for nature. He helped shape a new generation of guides, and you see that commitment to the work in everyone who drives for Makasa.

Ngomi in short

On safari since 1995. Since he was seventeen, and still happiest in the field.

Born in Moshi. Tanzanian mother, German father, raised at the foot of Kilimanjaro.

Favourite place, Lobo. The quiet of the northern Serengeti, where he built his first camp.

Speaks three languages. Fluent Swahili, English and German.

A father through and through. Makes it his mission to pass the safari life on to his children.

Selma, who stayed in Tanzania

Selma grew up in the Netherlands and came to Moshi in 2008, as a trainee nurse. It was meant to be an internship of a few months, but Tanzania would not let her go, and nor would Ngomi. A year later she packed up her life in the Netherlands and moved for good, to build a family and a business with him.

They built Makasa from the ground up, literally everything themselves, from the first website to plotting out the trips. Where Ngomi brings the country, Selma brings the other half, the organising, the thinking it through with you, and the feel for what a traveller from far away needs in order to be at ease. She is the link between your questions at home and your trip in Tanzania, and she makes sure it all holds up, down to the smallest detail.

What she finds best of all, she says herself, is watching her children grow up in the nature of Tanzania, travelling together, going out into the wilderness together. That is exactly the feeling she wants travellers to have, that a trip here is more than a holiday, it is something that stays with you.

Selma in short

In Tanzania since 2009. Emigrated from the Netherlands, and never left again.

Favourite trip, the Rift Valley Walk. A trek from the Empakai crater to Lake Natron.

From nursing to safari. Started as a nurse, now runs a company, a journey of her own.

What she is proud of. When it all comes together, from the planning in the office to the guides in the field.

Speaks almost three languages. Dutch, English, and getting there with Swahili.

Our own camp in the quiet of the north

After years of taking travellers through the Serengeti, Selma and Ngomi saw something change. The busy centre of the park filled up, with long lines of jeeps at a single lion, and the well known crossing points were getting fuller too. The Serengeti they knew, wide and quiet, became a traffic jam in places. So they decided to make a place of their own, far from the crowds. They went north, first to the hills of Lobo, later to untouched Bologonja.

There, in 2022, they opened Kimbilio, which means safe haven in Swahili. Two small tented camps, on solar power, where the wilderness is the starting point and not a backdrop. At Kimbilio you sleep in a real tent, with the canvas as the only wall between you and the night. You fall asleep to the sound of hyenas and lions, and wake to birdsong.

Around Lobo there are lions, leopards and elephants all year, so you do not have to wait for the migration to have a safari worth the trip. And because the camps lie outside the busy routes, you are often there alone with the animals.

Kimbilio is not simply a place to spend the night. It is the proof of what Makasa is, a family that has lived in Tanzania long enough to build something itself, to know which hills hold the best lions, and to put its own name on the door. And the story continues. From early 2027 we open a lodge of our own at the foot of Kilimanjaro, so that you are at our home at the start of your trip as well.

What we believe

We see more and more trips built around seeing as much as possible in as little time as possible. One night in the Serengeti, on to the crater the next day, ticking off the highlights so you can say you were there. We do not believe in travelling that way. A safari is not a list to work through, it is something to take time over, to take in properly.

Staying with a herd a whole morning, waiting for the leopard to come down out of the tree, being quiet, and watching. So we would rather take our travellers to the quiet places, away from the queues at the busy sightings, not only because it travels better, but because it is better for the animals. Tanzania is not simply a destination, it is our home, and we treat it that way.

What we stand for as a family run safari company

Everything we do, we do ourselves, with our own guides and our own jeeps, and no intermediaries. You have one point of contact in Moshi, from your first question to the day you fly home.

Everything tailor made

No fixed packages. We build every trip around what you want.

We live here

Selma and Ngomi run Makasa themselves from Tanzania, and have since 2010.

Your own guide and jeep

Everyone who drives for Makasa is someone we know personally and chose ourselves.

Our own camps

Kimbilio in the northern Serengeti, built and run by us.

Giving back to Tanzania

We work with local people and local projects, and Ngomi has spent years training Tanzanian guides.

Personal contact

One person you deal with, in Moshi, before, during and after your trip.

More than 390 five-star reviews on TripAdvisor

They came to meet us

I can't recommend Makasa enough. Selma organized the whole trip perfectly including a few days in Zanzibar after the Safari experience. Selma and her husband even came to meet us on our first morning. A nice personal touch we thought.

Dianne Scott

Flexible, and spot on

Selma was very helpful and super flexible. She gave us good advice on the different accommodation and customized the trip to our budget and interests. The organization was spot on, the accommodation was very good and we felt very comfortable and safe at all times.

Ines Adams

It gave us the confidence

Contact prior to our holiday was good, quick and open for our own wishes which gave us the confidence to proceed. Reliable, more than flexible, professional and experienced are our words to describe Makasa. We are most grateful for the great experience.

Gerdien van Schelven

The people who take you out on safari

We are Makasa, but on safari our guides are the face of your trip. They take you out on a safari in Tanzania, into the parks, spot the animals, and share their knowledge of the country they grew up in. Everyone who drives for Makasa is someone we know personally and chose ourselves, on their knowledge, their patience, and their love of nature.

Kelvin

Kelvin reads the Serengeti like no one else, calm, sharp, and with a humour that makes the long days in the jeep lighter.

Humphrey

Humphrey spots what others drive straight past, from the big five to the smallest detail, with an enthusiasm that catches.

Robert

Robert drives calmly and unshakeably, and he has the patience to wait until the leopard finally shows itself.

Augustino

Augustino is the quiet, friendly guide with whom you feel at ease from the very first mile.

See our itineraries

Look inside our life in Tanzania

Selma likes filming, and takes you into our daily life here. At home, at the office, and on safari. Sometimes she hands the camera to one of the guides, sometimes the children film too. So you see with your own eyes what it is like to live and work in Tanzania, no glossy advertising, just our life.

See all our vlogs

What we can do for you

Now that you know us a little, we would like to tell you more about the trip that suits you. No obligation, no standard pitch, just a conversation about what you are looking for and what is possible. We think it through with you, and together we find out whether Tanzania becomes your place too.

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