I am currently in route back from a Safari in Namibia. I grass I have to vent more that anything, so here goes....
I purchased a safari at auction last year with a large and reputable company in Namibia. Two weeks ago we started the safari. Everything went great except for our PH. hewas incredibly rude, condeinsening and constantly sarcastic. Not just to us to other hunters in camp, camp staff and especially to the other PHs. He would constant tell us how bored he was because he does this all the time and lives in Africa. Anytime we had cell reception he would pull the cruiser over and talk "business". I understand enough africaan that he was not talking business just girls, drinking etc.
My wife and I discussed it and we just decided to call our safafri short a couple of days just to get away from this PH. Everything else on the safari was fanatic and really enjoyed everyone's company except this one individual. Unfortunate this is te person I had to spend all my time with.
I did not complain since the hunt was a very generous donation from the safari company. I guess my question is should I have complained or just kept my mouth shut and just ended the safari?
We did give him a ridiculy low tip in our opinion, but the tracker Got a very large one, just to prove a point.
I've been in the hunting business since the late eighties and your experience is exactly why I just do all of my own guiding.
I've hired guides in the past and had mostly good experiences with my clients generally being pleased but of course with humans involved there's a guarantee that occasionally there are going to be some problems.
Like others in this thread my first reaction as a client would be to politely take the PH off to the side and explain to him that I didn't pay to be treated poorly and that if things didn't change immediately I'd be on the phone to his boss.
Secondly, even if the rest of the hunt went well I'd be on the phone to his boss.
Sometimes you have clients that cannot be pleased no matter what and who want to treat the guide/PH like low wage hired help which most professionals will take instant offense to but you don't sound like the kind of fellow who would treat them in such a way.
Even if you had treated him poorly though, there's no excuse for him being rude. Since you say he treated everyone the same, it sounds like you just drew up bad and got a very unprofessional "professional".
As an employer of guides over the years I can promise you I'd want to know immediately if one of my clients felt they were being treated poorly by the PH/Guide.
When the outfitter hands you off to someone he has hired that person becomes the face of the company and directly the representative of the outfitter as a person so trust me, they'd want to know and know immediately.
I can understand your hesitancy in speaking up immediately and directly but if you ever have another similar experience trust me, you want to speak to the boss as soon as possible, we realize that it only takes one bad experience to sour someone on the whole notion of hiring an outfitter in the future.
I applaud you for keeping names out of your original post and I must say, if this is your idea of a rant you are much more of a gentleman than I.
Like the others have said, please don't let this one bad experience keep you from trying again, there are some great people in the business all across Africa and from my short time on this forum I can assure you that some of the best of them can be found right here as I've known some of the names you see here every day by reputation for years.
Best wishes on a better trip next time.
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