The A-team that makes it all happen, working day in day out to create your custom-made adventure, consists of our operations team, logistics team and trained mechanics.

Chris Pilley – Company Director

Born in Jersey, Channel Islands. Surrounded by merging oceans, grew up with nature and adventure in his blood, a member of the Young Ornithologist club at the age of 10years old, and with that continued into his teens exploring and experience what the great outdoors had to offer.

World traveler, involved in many areas of tourism for the last 15 years. Experienced bush walker, guided several disabled groups up Mt. Kilimanjaro one being a world record taking an epic 21 day climb through arrow glacier. Dive master, having the pleasure to guide fellow divers through the crystal blue waters of Thailand and Honduras also involved in the removal of alien star fish and sea urchins to re-establishment of macro systus seaweed forests in Tasmania, Australia. Several back to back snow boarding season working as a snow board instructor opening up the powder slopes for those who wanted to free ride!!, loves wide open spaces, extreme mountainous areas and wild windswept coastlines where he feels most at home…

Arrived in Tanzania back in 2000, he now takes a great pleasure in showing everyone what he has discovered with the custom made adventure safaris that Bush 2 Beach Safaris design and arrange.

Ingrid Vaes – Company Director

Ingrid first came to East Africa as a volunteer back in 2000 when she was involved in a community development program setting up a drip irrigation program for the local community. It was there she fell in love with the people and the land and moved to Tanzania where she set down her roots and joined the B2B team in 2006.

From there on Ingrid has streamlined all aspects of operations to be the well tuned professional company that has risen through the ranks as one of the leading adventure specialist in Tanzania to date.

Like her partner Chris, if she’s not in the office creating utimate adventures she’ll be in the bush living them…

Tabitha Gillard (Tabby) – Sales and Reservations

Tabby recently joined the B2B team back in May 2009 – a well traveled lady within Tanzania, growing up in the shadows of the impressive Eastern Arc Mountains in the small village of Mwembe which is the back door and hidden trail into the recently opened Mkomazi National Park. The whole area surrounding Mkomazi and Arc Mountains are truly inspirational and it is perhaps from her upbringing and her 12 years of living below this impressive mountain range that her dreams of becoming a tour leader have stemmed from.

Her family then moved to the tropical coastal town of Tanga where she continued her education finally arriving to Arusha in 2002 to complete here schooling. The world of employment awaited young Tabitha and she was employed as a sales and booking officers for an Emergency evacuation service that provides an invaluable service to tour operators and residents alike. It was in this roll she began to rub shoulders with the tourism industry and the flame was rekindled to be more in tune with the great outdoors that Tanzania holds this intern lead her to us. Tabby came to us full of ambitions and as B2B had grown rapidly over the last three years it was definitely time to share the work load in the office. Tabby came in relatively green under the gills but with 6 months she had a good handle on operations, reservations and now is designing her own custom made safaris.
Watch this space for the 1st B2B female tour leader…coming soon

Simon Kimaro – Head driver guide

Original from Mtu wa Mbu – were is family still lives today farming on the fertile soils that surround the “Great Rift Valley” – spent his younger days growing up on the foothills of Kilimanjaro’s Machame area coming from Wa-Chaga tribe. Passionate about wildlife and the Tanzania bush, he has been a professional driver guide for the last 8 years and has grown into the position as head driver guide for Bush 2 Beach.

Simon is cool, calm and collected in everyway and his reputation as a great guide is unstated title but seems fitting with the amount of repeat clients that ask for him time and time again. Whilst Simon is not in the field he continues to play an important roll in training younger drivers sharing his knowledge, experience and ensuring that the vehicle fleet is kept in tip top order to handle the rough conditions that the Tanzanian bush holds.

Simon finally tied the knot in 2009 and is expecting his first child in April 2010 he enjoys keeping his finger on the pulse of Tanzania politics, strives to attend law school in the coming years and study criminal law, the later we hope he changes his mind and continues to reveal the wanders of Tanzania to all that visit.

James Mollel – Mobile Camp manager and Driver guide

James has a great experience and knowledge of the different tribes and cultures in Tanzania and before joining Bush 2 Beach had been working in a permanent tented camp in the heart of Serengeti as camp manager and driver guide. Although James loved his lifestyle in the bush and learnt so much from it – he decided it was time for a change of scenery and moved back to Arusha seeking employment as a driver guide.

After several safaris and as James grew into the company we soon discovered his natural ability in organization. It was there upon that he grew into the position as Operations and Camp manager for Bush2 Beach’s own permanent and mobile semi-luxury camps – for the last 2 years James regularly throughout the season spends time once again in the heart of Serengeti and the Ngorongoro conservation area in the special camp locations, where he oversees that the camps are set correctly and that all who come to experience Bush 2 Beach semi lux mobile camps are guaranteed the best service and personal attention that you would expect from a lodge or a permanent tented camp.

James is a very confident young man and warms at the opportunity to give a speech skillfully in either English or Swahili at any B2B function, it has become a bit of a standing joke that James will always open such events – this ability is very special and his relaxed personality and understanding of the African bush ensue that even a short time spent in his company will be rewarding and educational and what better way to receive this knowledge from a born Masai.

John Longino – Driver Guide

A senior guide Bush 2 Beach is fortunate to now have working in the B2B Team. I have known John for around 8 years but try nailing the guy down!! Now that is not an easy task. After a big gap in not meeting or learning of John’s whereabouts we met in passing around 2 years ago, I learnt then that the 4 years absence was due to him driving and guiding clients in and out of Tanzania with large amounts of time spent in the Kenyan National Parks.

John is the most senior driver we have and he is still a young man in his early 40’s – Johns 25 years of driving and guiding clients throughout East Africa has brought him to an elite class of professional driver guides that’s shines out without effort when heading out into the national parks. Another great asset that John has behind him is that before he became a driver guide he was a mechanic for 5 years, he has the ability to fix a car with what the bush has to offer in order for him to make it back to the nearest town to complete the repair.

Johns humor is great and his personality light with a uncanny understanding of English, he may be quiet at times but he is following every word that is being said and will come back in on the conversation on the punch line. John is married with x 2 children, his daughter is 17 years and his son is 10 years old, he lives on the outskirts of Arusha originally coming from Shinyanga region and the Gold mining town of Kahama.

Paul Silwamba – Kilimanjaro mountain guide

Originally from Sumbawanga, which is tucked away at the bottom of Lake Tanganyika the longest lake in the world. His family still work the land with the cattle farm, and once a year Paul makes the 3 day journey to catch up with friends and family.

Paul moved to Moshi 11 yrs ago where he first completed his professional level of mountain guiding, he then set foot on Kili as a porter for 2 years of mountain experience and has now been guiding for 8 years, with a healthy record of 100!! + successful summit attempts. On the mountain he is a gentle giant, with a huge a personality and grin to go with it, his ability to bring around negative thinking into positive action is a special gift that Paul certainly has and his B2B kili crew are always there to back him up..what better combination can there be to make up a winning Kili Team…

If he is not climbing the mountain he loves either watching football or playing it. He now lives in Arusha with his wife and young son.

Gody Silwamba – Operations Manager

Like his brother Paul – Originally from Sumbawanga, Beatus (Gody) left his home land and traveled up to Arusha in a quest for work. He joined “Pauls kili crew” and gained over 3 years of experience climbing Kilimanjaro varying routes rising through the ranks to assistant guide, he has summited Kili more times than I can remember, assisted with two film shoots up the mountain one being the IMAX movie and the other a French reality TV show “Destination Afrika” the B2B guides x 6 lead by Paul and 160 strong porter crew assisted 9 disabled contestants and a 32 film crew to the summit of Kilimanjaro.

Gody’s leadership and organization skills made him a perfect candidate for our operations, he was somewhat happy to say good bye to the mountain as time was wearing on knee joints and as and attended wildlife college to gain a further understanding of the African bush and it’s inhabitants, a bubbly personality and a pleasure to have as team player. If you can tie him down for more than 10 minutes he has wealth of stories, but chances of this happening are few and far between!! most people operate on x 4 cylinders Gody is primed with a V 12 set up and running on octane fuel.

Elisante Dennis – Stores Manager

Elisante (Sule) has been with B2B since it developed from a thought to where we are to day. Although somewhat behind the scenes, his roll in keeping our stock and equipment in tip top order is no small undertaking and his positon is equally important as the rest of the B2B team – he manages his own camp crew, and ensures that all logistics and preparations are in place for a perfect safari.

You may see him from time to time on one of our Semi lux camp safaris, once again making sure that your stay in the bush is as comfortable as possible, a quiet guy but easy recognizable by his smile…