28 Days in the African Bush with EcoTraining

May 13, 2019 - 5 minutes read

Explore the wilderness of the majestic Makuleke Concession in the famed Kruger National Park or Mashatu in the Northern Tuli Reserve in Botswana on foot, on a 28-day Trails Guide Course with EcoTraining Guides & Guardians.

The majority of your time on this FGASA-accredited course will be spent on foot, conducting bush walks in big game country.

Although, in a nutshell, this course is about learning to conduct guided nature walks in dangerous game areas, you don’t have to be budding safari guide to attain the trails guide certificate. You can be a person who merely wants to be part of the conservation movement and reconnect with nature in a very unique way.

Doing a Trails Guide Course is one of the most rewarding experiences for any nature lover. Being able to spend every day walking in nature and learning about the variety of species that make up the incredible southern Africa ecosystems — in areas unhampered by human presence — is an absolute privilege.

Imagine traversing through the African wilderness on foot with no civilization for miles. The sun is slowly rising, and you’re getting ready to depart for your morning expedition. You’re staying in an unfenced bush camp, so you hear the sound of breaking branches from elephants feeding close by. You enjoy a cup of coffee as you wait for your comrades to get ready to depart.

You walk in a straight line behind your lead trails instructor and back-up. The morning is quite noisy with the sounds of the wild. You can identify many bird-calls in the distance and chatting baboon troops roosting nearby.

You come across a herd of buffalo, and fortunately the wind carries your scent to them, so they are not frightened off. Instead, they stand cautiously aware of your presence and you take a moment to observe them in awe in the morning sun.

Further on you find tracks and dung on the ground. The instructor tells you that they’re from an elderly elephant cow. She left her herd and now travels alone. Her dung, unlike younger elephants that is finely refined, is coarse and shows thicker twigs and lengths of bark that have not been chewed properly. The old lady has grinded away five sets of teeth and is now wearing away her sixth set but unable to chew her food properly.

Your instructor finds a great resting stop near the river, where you set up for tea and coffee. You perch on the riverbed sand and see a group of hippos clustered together in the water. The instructor tells you they are more active at night because it’s cooler and the temperature is more favorable for them to move around on land. Their skin secrets an oily fluid that looks like blood, which helps prevent their skin from drying out and acts as a natural antibiotic on scratches they may get in the water.

You and your group pack up and trail back to camp, discovering amazing encounters and views along the way. After walking four hours in the bush, a well-deserved breakfast and recap on the morning’s adventures awaits you back at camp.

You are guaranteed that your environmental knowledge, situational awareness and nature appreciation will increase exponentially on this course. The lessons you will take away from this experience will help you become more in tune with other areas of your life.

If you have a yearning to break away from the hustle and bustle of life and need to re-set by going back to basics as nature has intended, then inquire about the EcoTraining Trails Guide Course. You will surely leave this course a different human being with a new outlook on life and nature.

Learn more about the course

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