Most safaris begin with a wish list, whether spoken aloud or carried in the back of your mind, perhaps a leopard draped across the branch of an old tree, a pride of lions stirring in the first light, wild dogs moving through the woodland, or a particular bird that has travelled a very long way with you in the pages of a field guide. Don’t be surprised, if somewhere along the way, something changes.
The animals you hoped to see still matter, of course, but you might start finding that so too does the track pressed into the sand beside the vehicle, the distant alarm call that makes your guide stop mid-sentence, the almost imperceptible change in a puku’s posture, or the tiny bird in the branches above you that you would have driven straight past only a few days before. Your eyes begin to adjust to a world that was always there, but that you did not yet know how to see. More often than not, the person sitting in the driver’s seat is the reason.
“Growing up being surrounded by animals in my village, I always found animal behaviour very interesting. And I was lucky enough to have an uncle who was a guide and he would explain these animal behaviours to me. Years down the line, I am able to share that with my guests and nothing makes me happier as a guide myself.” — Ronald, Time + Tide Safari Guide
A great safari guide is part naturalist, part storyteller and part interpreter.
Your safari guide is reading a landscape that is constantly shifting and piecing together clues that, to an untrained eye, might mean very little at all. Tusk marks in the trunk of a tree, a fresh track crossing the road, the direction of the wind or the cry from a squirrel can become the beginning of a story, one that may lead to something extraordinary or simply reveal another small layer of how the magical world of the wild works.
“What I love most about being a safari guide is meeting and making friends with people from all walks of life and being able to show them my natural world” — Bright, Time + Tide Safari Guide
Yet knowing the bush is only part of the craft, because a great guide is as curious about the people beside them as they are about the landscape around them. They listen, notice what captures someone’s attention and learn when to linger, when to move on and when an unexpected interest is worth following, shaping each safari around the people they are sharing it with rather than simply following a well-worn route.
Perhaps you have always loved trees, and suddenly one particular tree becomes a doorway into stories about elephants, birds, insects, seasons and the many relationships that hold a landscape together. Or perhaps you arrive certain that lions will be the highlight of your safari and leave talking endlessly about wild dogs, bee-eaters or the seemingly insurmountable journey of a dung beetle, rolling its ball kilometres down the road as you drive alongside it.
The finest guides have a way of meeting you where your curiosity begins and then, almost without you noticing, widening it.
But, they also know when to stop. There are moments when knowledge adds another layer to what you are seeing, and others when the greatest gift is silence; the engine switched off as a herd of elephants wander down towards the river, a leopard shifts lazily in the branches above you, or the last of the afternoon light settles across the landscape. Nothing needs to be named or explained and you may simply sit, watch and become part of the landscape, letting the wild carry on around you undisturbed as it has been for centuries.
There is humour too, because the bush has never been particularly good at following anybody’s plans. Animals appear and disappear as they wish, roads change with the seasons and carefully imagined mornings take unexpected turns, and there is something wonderful about being with a guide who knows this world well enough to laugh with it, adapt to it and enjoy wherever the day decides to go.
In South Luangwa, this way of seeing the wilderness has been passed from one generation of guides to another, shaped in part by Norman Carr, whose pioneering walking safaris invited travellers to leave the vehicle behind and experience the landscape at its own pace. That tradition continues at every Time + Tide property each time you step onto a path behind a guide, travel through the bush by vehicle or follow the bends of the Lower Zambezi by boat. Each of these perspectives reveals something different and each requires its own way of reading the wild.
Years after a safari, the leopard resting in a tree, elephants crossing the river or lions appearing through the early morning grass may remain vivid, but so too will the person who noticed the flick of an ear in the grass, heard the distant call, made you laugh and knew exactly when to say nothing at all. Because the greatest gift of a guide is not simply showing you the wild, but opening your eyes to everything that was there all along.
FOLLOW THE ROAD LESS TRAVELLED
Discover the road less travelled
Our expertise in African travel and conservation dates back for many decades, you can expect equally pioneering travel guidance from our award-winning team. Time + Tide are custodians of some of the most remote corners of our planet and it is our privilege to guide you along the road less travelled.