Font cover inset photo

Parkipumy Kalsoi in the Gol Mountains, Tanzania (front cover)

When I left Cazenove and Loyd, the travel company that Henrietta Loyd and I had set up to specialise in African holidays, I realised there was one crucial ingredient to any trip I had ever sent anyone on - the guide. He made both the safari and its African backdrop unforgettable.

I have drawn on my own deep passion for Africa and personal observations. Having travelled extensively throughout Fast and southern Africa during my career as a tour operator. There are many excellent professional guides with impeccable reputations, some of whom 1 have met but unfortunately never travelled with. My criterion for the guides I have chosen to profile is that 1 have been on safari with them.

Since 1 have enjoyed their humour and their stories, I should like to share some of the best with you. including their own tales of adventure and hardship (and sometimes a dash of love). They have helped me understand their happiness in the choices they've made, the lives they've led, their concerns, hopes and plans for the future. Wherever possible I have authenticated the family legends concerning them.

Although some of them guide all over Africa (and in some cases other parts of the world) I have divided them into their original regions. where. in most cases. their spiritual selves reside. For the reader who may never have experienced the terrain they worked in, the heat, the luxuriance or barrenness of the landscape. a small description of each area is included.

I cannot tell their stories without including some of my own, since they are so closely linked to the guide l was with at the time.

My daughter, the artist Jessica Hoffman, has drawn magnificent charcoal portraits of the twelve guides profiled, in each case capturing their personalities. The rest of the book is illustrated, with one or two exceptions, with my own photographs.