Who Guides the Guides

Pressure of work last week forced me to cancel an appointment I was really looking forward to - and it was one of the biggest disappointments I’ve had in a long time. I’d been invited by Joslin, a student at Storms River Adventures to attend her practical assessment at the end of her training – under Louis Willemse - for her FGASA (Field Guide Association of South Africa) Level 1 Certificate. The guys at Storms River Adventures are old friends and I’ve often written about them because they’ve done very real development work in their community (witness their winning both the ‘Best Practice – Economic Impact’ category in the Imvelo Awards for Responsble Tourism and the ‘Company of the Year – SMME’ category in the Westbank Proudly South African Awards in 2007).

I wanted to see first hand how they went about training their guides. And I’d recently had experience with another group of guides, too - in June, as you know, I walked the Oyster Catcher Trail – a luxury hike between Mossel Bay and the Gourits River Mouth.

And having once owned a guide’s license (pressure of work – gave it up), these two things set me to thinking about what books good guides are using these days. I’ll never forget hearing a lodge owner – who happened to have been a terrible guide – telling me that he’d once been asked the botanical name of the fever tree. “I didn’t have a clue,” he said, “but I knew it was an acacia, so I called it ‘Acacia feveritis’.”

“Two years later a couple of Americans asked me to show them an Acacia feveritis… I couldn’t believe it: the name I’d made up had traveled round the world.”

Precisely.

So I went onto Struik’s web site and chose six books that I’d use if I were still guiding today (you might not agree with me – but if you don’t, please leave a comment below and let’s get a conversation going here)

Sasol Birds of Southern Africa by Ian Sinclair, Phil Hockey & Warwick Tarboton - Mine came bound with plastic-reinforced paper (the hardcover edition was my bible when I was a bird guide all those years ago – this one’s gonna be a whole lot lighter in my backpack)

Newman’s Birds of Southern Africa by Kenneth Newman – this is the classic field guide and I really liked the see-through PVC slip-cover. Field guides always get so tattered and this should keep it looking shipshape for a while to come

A Complete Guide To The Snakes Of Southern Africa by Johan Marais – OK, I’m not a snake man myself, but I do see the attraction. This one’s less likely to go into the backpack, though (too heavy), but it’s a fine addition to the bookshelf.

Smither’s Mammals of Southern Africa: A Field Guide edited by Peter Apps – I saved up for months to buy my first edition Smither’s. Back then, it was a huge tome (it still is) that you’d never think of carrying anywhere unless you had a forklift. As conservationists tend to frown on forklifts, this handy soft cover might be more practical.

Field Guide to Fynbos  (John Manling) – one of my favourites, and one that took too long to get here. As I live in the beautiful Western Cape Province, this is one I’d never leave home without (and by the way – it’s the one book that my stepson, who’s an indigenous landscape gardener here in Knysna, carries everywhere. And he HATES reading).

How To Identify Trees In Southern Africa by Braam & Piet van Wyk – this is the one my lodge owner should have used…

  • Jobs in Tourism on This Tourism Week

I’ve added a new service to this site – Jobs in Tourism.

This week Lyn Scheibe of Swift Personnel has two particularly troublesome posts to fill – troublesome because, she says, “they aren’t the usual game ranger/chef/lodge manager type.”

View them here.

  • Why B&B Sure’s Seal of Insurance is the Tourist’s Seal of Insurance

I predict that B&B Sure’s Seal of Insurance will soon become a standard criterion for on-line shoppers looking for accommodation in South Africa – especially overseas shoppers. Both because it indicates that the establishment carries enough cover and because it indicates that it has all its ducks in a row (which is far preferable to how we did it in the old days – when all you needed was a row of ducks on the wall).

Visit This Tourism Week’s media page for more…

And have a GREAT Tourism Week