Great guides = great safaris

Imvelo Safari Lodges held their annual guide training back in March and have spent the months since using their renewed knowledge delighting guests. Cuan, from Imvelo’s marketing team, was there for the training week and shared the following report.

We’re excited that the guide team Imvelo is fielding this year is our best ever and they’re excited because they know it!

Two new guides joined the team for the new season – it is welcome back to an old friend Dean Adams who was with us before Covid, and a new face with Mbeks Sibanda – both are fully licensed guides that spent the last season in Mana Pools National Park – welcome home to Hwange gentlemen!

Guides training week at Bomani this year saw the team brushing up on skills across the full spectrum of what is considered important, sharing knowledge with younger guides and having a lot of fun doing what all of us love to do.

Long busy days saw our teams of guides rotating between specialist instructors and our senior pro guides exploring the plethora of activities that constitute good guiding techniques:–

• Lectures on Zimbabwean topics ranging across the history of our country, our people and our national treasures including Victoria Falls, the Zambezi River and of course Hwange, its elephants, and our very own Community Rhino Conservation Initiative bringing rhino back to the Ngamo Plains.
• Careful and thrilling foot approaches to elephant, buffalo, and even lions.
• Careful, respectful vehicle approach techniques on lion, both our male coalition and our lionesses including Nomvelo. With her new cubs, they were great study subjects, as were our cheetah the famous Chiz boys and even Cindy too.
• Bird watching – not only identification but observing and studying the wonderful variety that make Hwange their home.
• How to ensure our guests get the most out of their photography so that they may help their guests as needed – approaches from up sun or down sun, shade and full sunlight, silhouettes and macro.
• Weapons handling and firearm safety as well as some skills practice under instruction from one of Zimbabwe’s best.
• Safety protocol and best practice techniques when walking with our rhinos Thuza and Kusasa and their team of Cobra Rangers.
• And then some practice runs on bush lunches and meal preparation in the field all the way up to the climax with cheeseburgers amongst the elephants at one of our waterholes.

These and many other experiences are awaiting our guests and we look forward to meeting you soon!