About Us
Farhat and Francisca Jah. Your personal travel hosts.
Travel on your Safari with the experts. Having each spent two decades living in the African bush accumulating an intimate knowledge of Africa and its culture, there are no better guides for your journey.
Francisca is a published anthropologist, and Farhat (Raf) is a well-published travel writer. In addition to their African adventure Francisca and Farhat are also accomplished divers with 4000 dives between them. Farhat is an NAUI instructor trainer, and Francisca is completely fluent in 4 languages including Swahili.
There really is no better combination of education, training, and experience on this magical continent than Farhat and Francisca. Read more about their story below.
Our Story
This is all started in Asia. Raf Jah left university in 1994 and was set to become a journalist. He had an introduction lined up in Malaysia and set off to meet his contact to search for a job in the Malay Peninsula. When he got there, he thought he would do some scuba dives. He ended up diving all over Indonesia, Malaysia and Australia. He discovered an old man called Dodent Mahyaddin in Pulau Whe and was stunned by the diving. All ideas of becoming a journalist were firmly left behind and Raf flew back to London to set up a dive shop with a partner who promptly left for a better offer and left Raf standing. (This was to become a theme). At a loss, Raf got on a plane to India to visit his father and look for work in India. On the Indian Airlines jet, he noticed that India had possession of the string of Islands north of Pulau Whe, “the Andaman and Nicobar islands, there has to be good diving there” he said, and set about finding out how. Within 10 months, Raf opened the first private dive centre in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. This achievement is to this day, one of his proudest. India was somewhat closed to the world in the mid-1990s and life was not easy.
“I had no idea what I was doing, I simply had total confidence that if I kept trying, I’d get there” Raf recalls. He did get there, but India would not allow him to employ foreign staff so after three years of pioneering as a two-man band, he had had enough. Raf returned to London, bought a 110 Landrover for £1800 and drove across Africa. On his way he found Tanzania. North of Zanzibar was the small island of Pemba. After completing the expedition to Cape Town he returned to Tanzania and set up another pioneering dive company. He needed help though and with New Zealander Paul Stockley, they opened a guest house in the town. Swahili Divers was an instant success, with professional diving and great little backpackers. Sadly Paul returned to New Zealand- Raf takes the blame for this. “I did not appreciate what Paul brought to the business until long after he left. Paul was assiduous and ticked all the admin boxes”.
In 2001, Raf met Francisca over tea in Zanzibar. By 2002 he had persuaded her to return to Pemba and run the lodge. The lodge morphed into a beach resort and Francisca ended up running the kitchen and lodge. While Cisca ran the hospitality side, Raf developed his passion for diving and training. Ending up as an NAUI Instructor Trainer (equivalent to PADI course director) and a PADI Dive Instructor. Raf has over 2900 dives to his name and has trained many instructors.
Francisca was a Marine anthropologist who spent a year living on the edge of a dried-up lake in Namibia studying what fishermen did with themselves when the rains did not come. Her second research project was in Zanzibar to study slightly more active fishermen. After working at the Netherlands South Africa Institute, Francisca agreed to move to Africa as long as Raf agreed to marry her. On the 27th of March 2004 Raf and Cisca married in Istanbul, went on safari in the desert for honeymoon and then returned to Pemba. It was here that Francisca developed a safari consultancy out of nothing. So many clients sat around the dinner table and mentioned how their safari “was OK but had so many small issues that took away the magic”
During the Pemba rainy season, Raf and Francisca drove their land rover all over Tanzania researching safari companies and national parks. They found the very best and started dealing with them. By 2010 the safari side of the business was so large that it needed a separate entity, and Tanzania was not the place to do this. By 2012 the African and Oriental Travel company was born in the UK. The business went from strength to strength with safaris being organised in Zambia, Botswana, Namibia and Kenya. All of these were meticulously researched, as Raf and Cisca say: “we only sell what we have done”.
In addition to this, Francisca is an accomplished diver with over 1000 logged dives. Together with Raf, they started taking escorted groups to dive in Micronesia, Mexico, Papua New Guinea and beyond. The safari business grew and needed more attention. Raf and Cisca could not run the hotel and dive centre and travel agency all at the same time. Dogged by less-than-spectacular managers in Pemba, something had to give. After 23 years of operational diving and safari management, Raf and Cisca reluctantly decided it was time to leave the bush and concentrate on the travel agency.
Raf and Cisca are assisted by consultants Al and Chris. Al organises our mainland Japan tours and Chris does our Trans Siberian and South American extensions. Raf and Cisca still have their landrover in Tanzania and can be found driving around Africa every year, making sure that the good lodges stay good, and that no other small operator has suddenly become amazing. They bring with them unparalleled experience, that simply does not exist in some of the larger companies. Their one aim is to assist you in making your plans for your journey to Africa and the Orient as memorable as possible.
Our Ethos
We only sell what we have visited and what we know. We focus on our destinations. We are utterly honest when managing your diving & safari expectations.
We only deal with safe operations that we have physically inspected.
We will be completely honest and open with you. We have the humility to say: “let me find out, as I am not sure”.
We want to share our years of experience and knowledge with you.
We will always defer to someone who has more knowledge than us, even if this means encouraging you to book outside our company.
We treat you as our guests as would an old-fashioned safari guide.
We are on your side. If someone lets you down, they are letting us down: We will step in, and we will make it right.
