Lesson 6- The Guide is the Boss!

Here is a lesson about not letting your tracker tell you what to do!

When I got my first job as a Safari Guide, I was (as you would expect) very inexperienced and felt rather inadequate compared to the other guides at the lodge. I didn’t know my way around the reserve, didn’t know the other guides and relied heavily on my tracker (the person who sits on the front of the bonnet searching for tracks and animals). The first tracker I had was very confident and like a lot of trackers ‘chased the tips’, i.e they thought the more animals they found in the time the bigger the tip they would get (this is not the case in reality and we will cover this on a future lesson)!

One day we responded to a lion sighting in a dried up river bed and had to do a bit of offroading to get near the pride who were tucked down behind the bank in amongst the reeds. Being the inexperienced guide I was, I allowed my tracker to direct me closer and closer to the edge of the river bank to get an awesome sighting and sat there for a few minutes watching the lions sleeping (as it was 3pm and very hot). However it all then started to go wrong! When we went to move away, the vehicle started slipping in the mud and with each wheel spin the vehicle got closer and closer to the edge and in danger of slipping down the steep bank! Luckily the low range drive system on the Landrover allowed me to inch away from trouble and we finally got out of the sighting with my heart in my mouth. Thank goodness the clients never knew how close we were to getting very stuck!

The moral of this lesson is don't let other people tell you what to do. You are the guide and it is your job to decide what is best. From that day on, I was the boss and I told the tracker what to do!