In my forty odd years in the safari business, I can’t recall a time when a client asked about a safari guide, when planning a safari. And yet a safari guide is key to a transformative and fulfilling safari.

Mokoro with guide in Botswana

Most clients ask about the accommodation and wildlife. They want to know how to get to Africa, when is the best time to go, where is the best place to visit etc. They may sometimes ask if the safari is guided, referring to the guide as a tour leader or tour director, the same description of someone who leads a group of tourists on vacation in America or to Europe.

With  a group on safari there may well be a tour leader leading the group, making sure the group gets from one place to another, gets to airports on time to catch flights, ensure the group keeps to schedule and no-one gets lost.

That is not who I’m referring to when I say a safari guide is key to a transformative and fulfilling safari. The person I’m referring to is a highly trained and skilled safari guide, with as many as seven years training in the behavior of wild animals, tracking wild animals, and taking clients into the African wilderness. A Safari guide is a specialist in making clients feel comfortable on a photographic safari. More importantly, a safari guide interprets for the client what is being observed, and transforms the experience from one of simply observing an elephant, to one of understanding the elephant’s habits and behavior.

As with any profession, there are many different categories of safari guide. There is the tourist guide, mainly operating in cities such as Cape Town, taking tourists to visit the different attractions around the city, and explaining the history and culture of the area. These guides are also highly trained and certified for their knowledge of the particular city or attraction.

Then there are safari guides based at the different safari lodges. And here there can be huge differences in the level of training and knowledge, based on the particular lodges’ employment criteria. Some lodges simply want a guide who can drive a safari vehicle, be pleasant with clients, know how to navigate the different safari roads in the area but has little training or knowledge about wildlife. Other lodges insist their guides go through a rigorous training program, in all aspects of being a professional safari guide. The training can be spread over many years and include interacting with clients in the lodge, being able to cater to client comfort in the lodge, as well as knowing about the wildlife in the area, and ensuring client safety when out on game drives, seeing Africa’s varied and unique wildlife.

At the top of the safari guide tree is the professional safari guide, with certification verifying his or her knowledge of Africa’s flora and fauna. Professional safari guides are certified to take clients into the bush and keep them safe, conduct walking safaris armed with a rifle for safety, take clients on canoe safaris on some of Africa’s magnificent rivers, such as the Zambezi river, and at the same time, be raconteurs, entertaining clients with stories of Africa and its wildlife.

In Kenya, the body certifying safari guides is the Kenya Professional Safari Guides Association, with its Gold, Silver and Bronze qualifications. Gold requires six years of field experience along with written exams.

Zimbabwe has the Zimbabwe Professional Hunters and Guides Association, with its demanding guides course, producing some of Africa’s best trained safari guides.

And in South Africa, the Field Guides Association of South Africa, offers training courses to become a professional safari guide.

When planning a safari, therefore, ask about the qualifications and experience of the safari guide, or guides, at the destination or safari lodge where you will be staying. You’ll want to know the level of guide training and how many years of experience.

The difference between being on safari with an enthusiastic but poorly trained guide, versus being on safari with a highly trained and knowledgeable guide, will be the difference between a ho hum safari and a life-changing experience.

The enthusiastic guide will give you a fun time but the knowledgeable guide will fill you with wonder and awe at Africa’s majestic variety of wildlife and landscape.

 – Musings on Africa

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A Day in the Life of an Expert Safari Guide

In last week’s post, I wrote about the importance of having an expert guide on your African Safari.  Makhosi Ncube, from Somalisa Camp in Hwange National Park, Zimbabwe, was our expert guide, and I decided to follow-up and ask him some burning questions about what his daily life is like. Mak, kindly agreed to answer them.

1). Is it romantic? (if so, how?)

• The romance for me is in the bonds you form with the different people you meet. At the end of their stay, they are not guests for me, but they are like family; it feels like we’ve known each other for ages. It’s amazing how spending time with someone over the course of three days can create amazing long lasting bonds and friendships.

2). Is it dangerous? (Please give examples of a dangerous event and how you overcame it. Were you alone or with guests?)

• It’s safe to say while it’s one of the most amazing jobs, it’s also one of the most dangerous. You come across all sorts of situations dealing with wild animals. While some behavior can be predicted, at times, things happen differently. An example is while on a training exercise with fellow guides, we were tracking some lions, unbeknownst to us, they decided to make a turn and come back. So there we were face to face with Cecil’s pride of 11 lions. They stopped and looked at us; we held our ground and stood facing them with about 20 meters between us. They saw us and branched off, while maintaining a watchful eye on us.  So if it wasn’t for our proper training things could have easily gone wrong if we had panicked and started running.

3). Is it a job? ( Please explain so those who think it’s not a job, but just a fun life, get what is involved.)

• Yes it’s a job, the training we undergo is intense and very hard because it’s not just our lives that depend on it, but also the lives of the people with us. You start off with theoretical exams which test your knowledge of animals, birds, trees, the law, firearms safety and handling, as well as knowledge on current world events. You must pass this in order to be even allowed to start the practical side of guiding; then you undergo training for years till you’re competent enough to be able to take people on safaris. Learning does not stop. Once qualified, you have to keep studying as there is no limit to what is being discovered about these amazing animals we have surrounding us.

4). The best part of your job.

• The best part of my job is meeting new people from all over the world, seeing the smiles on their faces as they encounter their first elephant in the wild, and hearing the excitement in their voices as they ask questions about what they’re seeing. The look on their face as they are overwhelmed when a lion comes close to the car or passes by roaring. For me this job allows me to showcase the best of Zimbabwe from its amazing wildlife to its diverse culture. The best part is it allows me to travel the world through the stories and conversations held with so many diverse people from all over, as they describe their countries and homes.

5). The worst part of your job. (be honest!)

• For me the worst part would have to be getting judged by my age and years in the industry rather than the quality of my work. It’s an unfortunate thing that being a young guide can give some people the impression that you’re not a good guide which, while l understand they would think so, is still biased.

6). Please explain the training you went through and what’s involved.

• For me it’s been a long road in this industry, from taking theoretical lessons, to getting ready for the exams, studying night and day to master what the law requires of me as a guide as well as learning about the different animals and their characteristics. After passing my exams, I did some practical studies under the supervision of different guides from all walks of life. I had to learn everything from tracking, identification of birds by sight, nests, as well as their calls. Most importantly I was privileged to be part of the African Bush Camps team with a combined guiding knowledge of over 120 years. As a result, I’ve been learning from Africa’s best and most experienced guides such as Lewis Mangaba and Calvet Nkomo just to mention a few. While I’m now a professionally qualified guide, my journey is far from over, still have so much more to learn on my way to conquering Africa as a guide 7.

I had no idea how much training the guides have to go through. It often takes 7 years of studying and practical work in order to reach the level of expertise that is required to become an expert guide, and I am so lucky to have experienced this with our guide in Zimbabwe, Makhosi Ncube. When Mak told me he blogged, I was fascinated and said that I had to interview him. Please check out some of his beautiful photos on his website and blog.

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All photos in this post are from Mak’s site: wildlifediaries.weebly.com

When I joined Holden Safaris in June 2017, I did not really understand what Jim Holden, President of Holden Safaris, meant about the “luxury of the experience.” Now I understand the importance of having an expert guide who can enhance the overall safari experience.

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Makhosi Ncube-Guide in Zimbabwe

On my recent site inspection trip to Zambia and Zimbabwe with Jim Holden, President of Holden Safaris, I had the pleasure of experiencing, first-hand, how an expert guide, makes all the difference in your safari experience.

Jim Holden and I were on our way to inspect Somalisa Camp, a small luxury camp in Hwange National Park, Zimbabwe. We flew in from Mana Pools on a nine-passenger, Cessna Caravan, and landed on the hardened-dirt, Manga 3 runway.

A young man dressed in classic safari, stone-colored shirt and shorts, greeted us at the bottom of the small ladder as we exited the plane.

“You must be Jim and Sonia,” he said with his charming smile. “I’m Mak, your guide, from Somalisa Camp.”

Mak hoisted our bags onto his shoulders, and as we reached his jeep, he handed us a much-appreciated, bottle of ice cold water. Leaning over the edge of his vehicle, he asked if he would you like to go straight to Somalisa Camp to rest after our three-hour flight, or if we would prefer to go on an afternoon game drive on our way back to the camp.

“We want to go on a game drive,” Jim said.

I gulped down the water and asked Mak, “What’s that horrible loud noise?”

“It’s the Heartbeat of Hwange” he said.

Sensing my confusion, Mak continued. “We have only one diesel water pump left in the park, and it’s right there.” He pointed towards the waterhole. “All the rest of our 50 boreholes are now solar powered. The elephants are used to the sound of the diesel pump and know that it means water; that’s why they come here in the hundreds, to drink and bathe. Shall we wait to see them?”

“Of course,” Jim said. I worried that we might sit in the jeep for several hours before they appeared, but Mak was right. It only took 5-minutes, and sure enough, hundreds of elephants approached the water-hole for their sundowner.

Elephants drinking in the “noisy” water hole

We watched in awe, as the elephants, and the babies drank, and then strolled over to cover themselves with mud, in the second, nearby waterhole. It was a daily ritual, and Mak explained that we were only 40 kilometers from Botswana, and that the elephants traipse back and forth between Zimbabwe and Botswana, in search of water.

After this unique experience, Mak drove us along the sandy road, and pointed out every bird, even the ones my eyes had a hard time finding. He was interesting, sharp and entertaining, and knew the answers to each and every question Jim and I had.

“What’s that tree?” I asked.

“That’s the lead tree,” Mak said. “It sinks and looks dead. When you burn it, you get a white ash which can be made into a paste to relieve tooth ache. The white ash can also be turned into white paint which the villagers use to paint their houses.

Now I was impressed, and felt a rapport with our guide. He was professional and informative, and I soon realized how special it was to have our own private guide who had gone through the rigorous training required to become an expert on nature and wildlife.  I started quizzing Mak on everything.

“What’s that bird?” I asked.

“It’s the red-crested Korhaan, or the “suicide” bird as it’s commonly called.” Mak proceeds to pull out his book and points to the page with photos of this bird.

Mak told us that during the mating season. the male will fly up high, and at full throttle, dive straight towards the ground in suicide mode. The female picks her potential mate based on how impressive she perceives his close call to death.

Here is an eleven-second video demonstrating a suicide fall.

Equally crazy is the way the red-crested Korhaan dances and clicks during the mating season to catch the interest of a female.

Mak then drove us to Somalisa Camp, where we arrived just in time to see eleven wild-dogs drinking from the waterhole next to the lodge.  It was a long and exciting day, and I looked forward to freshening up before our evening sundowner and dinner.

Wild dogs in front of Somalisa Camp

At the entrance to Somalisa Camp, we were greeted by three super-friendly staff members, including Yvonne, whom I shall never forget. She was a burst of energy and her enthusiasm was contagious.

The staff greeting us at Somalisa Camp in Hwange, Zimbabwe

This was just the start of our safari in Hwange National Park, and having Mak as our guide, exemplified Jim Holden’s definition of the: “luxury of experience.” Most of our travelers at Holden Safaris are looking for the superior safari experience, and one of the key components to an outstanding safari, is a well-qualified, professional guide. I’m so happy I had that experience with Mak. Don’t miss next week’s blog post where I interview Mak about his daily life as a guide.

Next weeks’s blog post: An Interview with Mak. “A Day in the Life of a Safari Guide.”

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