I have not been rafting on the Amazon. I have not been on a photo safari, and certainly not the other kind. I imagine the guides on these trips prep for the day by loading the weapons (defensive), making sure the water canisters are filled and reminding everyone to slather on the mosquito repellant.
The tour guides I have encountered needed other skills. They had to be part historian and part actor, and they had to have a knowledge of and access to a reliable stream of acceptable restrooms.
The more pedestrian walking tour guide must know how to troubleshoot their group’s tangle of headsets. They will be walking confidently forward, finishing up a brilliant, well-rehearsed monologue about the exploits of Andrew Jackson, when one of their troop will holler out, “Ken, are we supposed to be on channel 6 or 7?”
It is not easy to keep such a group in tow. They will park themselves on a bench. They will wander off looking for shade. They will step off course because the shop across the street is selling gelato. The good (?) news is that the walking tour can only last as long as the knee brace of the group’s weakest link.
The leader of the day trip bus tour must contend with charges who will set up ownership of their little corner. Everyone wants to be at the front of the bus. Everyone wants to sit by a window. The tour guide must, in the cheeriest voice possible, convince his charges that it will be considered bad form to try and ace out a neighbor after a restroom stop. And while we’re at it, yes, there is a restroom on the bus. It should be used only in emergencies. Sadly, there will always be one.
Each time the bus stops, it will eventually need to get going again, and hopefully in a timely fashion. Specific return times (10:25) will be established, set forth, I’m sure, with full knowledge that someone will be at least a smidge late. They saved up going to the restroom until the last minute. There was the cutest pair of earrings in the gift shop and the line was long. The coffee shop had gelato.
Multiply this frustration by seven and you have the life of the week-long bus tour guide. Now, there are nightly hotel rooms to assign (Mrs. Phillips says her room has a sea view. Why can’t I have a sea view?). The brochure suggested one suitcase per person. They will each have two, which must be loaded at 7 a.m. in order to make the necessary 7:30 departure. For a 25-person bus group, 23 people will arrive on time and sit in their assigned seats, which now rotate each day so everyone will eventually get a window and a space at the front. One couple will be just a smidge late. They will continue this daily practice despite the glares from their fellow bus mates. Finally, the group is off to see wonders they have never encountered, at least 90 minutes worth of them, until they reach the first restroom stop.
This has to be exhausting – frustrating as all get out. But I’m glad there are still sturdy people out there who want to take on such a job. At least they do not have to wrestle an anaconda or ward off a deadly swarm of tse tse flies. They just have to contend with Mrs. Phillips, who is once again five minutes late because she has wandered off for gelato.
