Whenever I think of the magic of Africa, Meryl Streep’s voice utters, “I had a farm in Africa …” from the opening lines of Out of Africa and suddenly and quite immediately I am – as many others have been – whisked away to the mysterious, magical and often complex continent.
Baroness Karen von Blixen-Finecke penned her classic memoir about her life in Kenya as Isak Dinesen, which was adapted into the now classic film of the same name starring Streep and Robert Redford.
For a decade Jody Cole, owner and tour guide of Wild Rainbow African Safaris, has unraveled Africa’s mystery, magic and complexity for her guests.
Yet, Jody, 52, has shared her love for Africa with friends for more than her 10 year venture as an African safari guide. In 2004, she decided to share her love of Africa beyond her group of friends launching Wild Rainbow African Safari, a boutique safari company. In 2005, she began taking guests to Kenya, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zimbabwe to name a few of the countries she’s trekked through.
More than 300 people have followed Jody across a total of 10 East and Southern African countries in small and large groups. Her small staff of three full-time employees – including her partner in life Katharine Cole, who is the safari company’s office administrator, and herself along with two part-time staff – has helped Jody take a total of 50 groups on safari during the past decade.
“It has been the thrill of a lifetime to help my guests experience and appreciate the magic of Africa over these last 10 years,” says Jody, expressing her gratitude for the journey and the guests that have joined her during her exploration of Africa in a June 2 news release from the safari company.
“Africa is a place that you feel in your soul,” continues Jody, who is currently on safari. “I’m looking forward to many more great journeys over the next 10 years.”
(Photo: Robin Lowey)
For the Love of Africa
Girls That Roam has sat down with Jody on several occasions to talk about Africa and her experience launching Wild Rainbow African Safaris as well as spoken with some of her guests.
Jody’s love of Africa is contagious and courageous.
Anyone who has gone on safari with her or simply spoken with her about Africa catches her passion for the continent. Many of her guests echo each other about their experience going on safari with Jody, calling it, “life changing.” Like Jody, they have gotten hooked on Africa.
“Jody is such a friendly, outgoing, warm person. She’s like the living embodiment of a hug,” says Shannon Wentworth, who went on safari in Kenya with Wild Rainbow African Safaris in 2010. “On the other side of that, she is a humble student of Africa. Even though she’s been dozens of times, she still celebrates its awe and wonder with an almost childlike glee.”
“Spending time with Jody anywhere on earth is a complete joy, but her whole being lights up in Africa,” continues Shannon, who is planning on returning to Africa next year for the Kilimanjaro climb and safari with Wild Rainbow African Safaris. “I would not go to Africa with anyone else. It’s truly the best way to experience Africa. Her passion is magnetic. Her respect for Africa, its people, culture and creatures, is second to none. A safari with Jody will ignite and awaken you in ways you’ve not imagined.”
Other women who have gone on safari with Jody through her company were just as full of praises for her too.
“I’ll go back,” says Carol Steinkamp, who went to Uganda trekking gorillas and chimpanzees in the equatorial forest with Jody last year. “Once you go there you get hook.”
“The whole experience touched me in so many different ways,” says Carol, who met Jody at a conservation fundraiser in the Bay Area to save the elephants and was inspired and took the serendipitous meeting to fulfill her dream. “I had a lot of fun. I made some friends on the trip.”
Carol also journeyed to Kenya with Jody’s team’s assistance. The trip “went off without a hitch.”
Robin Lowey, who went on a South African safari in 2013, agrees.
“It was so great. Jody is just so knowledgeable. She made us feel so safe walking around the jungle,” says Robin.
“I think she’s the premiere most knowledgeable in the business,” Robin praises Jody.
As an American woman guide in Africa, Jody has accomplished what few women have achieved. Not only is she a woman safari guide who owns her own company, but she’s earned the second highest level of certification from the Field Guides Association of Southern Africa. The association oversees and sets standards for professional guides in Africa.
“[It] takes me out of everyone else’s realm and put me in a more exclusive realm,” says Jody, who has her eyes set on obtaining the top level field guide certification next.
In 2013, Jody, who accompanies between 4 and 18 guests on each trip, for the first time she began taking a few adventurous and daring guests on EcoQuests. Guests act more like guides of Africa in training on these safaris. They go out on a morning walking trek and a nighttime game drive, lectures on wildlife or geology of the region, and some overnight camping in the bush for the ultimate safari experience.
“Guests get a much more profound safari experience,” says Jody about a typical safari where guests go out in the morning on a three hour game drive, return to the lodge for lunch in the afternoon and some time off before heading back out in the evening.
On these safaris guests actually get hands-on experiences in the bush exploring and talking about everything they see, she says.
“Sometimes we encounter game, sometimes we don’t, but it’s a very engaging and interactive experience,” says Jody.
Generally, Jody offers a mixture of traditional and hands-on safaris as well as custom crafted trips for guests, including LGBT and ally safaris ranging from $6,000 to $10,550, not including airfare.
(Photo: Shannon Wentworth)
Dreaming of Africa
So, how does a nice Southern girl from Alabama become a tour guide in the wilds of Africa?
Blixen-Finecke wasn’t the only woman dreaming of Africa, actually, she was one of several women adventures in her day – either by default following their husbands to the so-called “Dark Continent” or were just as wild as Africa itself venturing from Europe to the distant land.
Nearly 70 years later, Jody also dreamed of Africa. It was a childhood dream that she never imagined would become a reality, much less more than a reality: her life’s passion and work.
It was 1997, broken hearted about the latest girl to have “done me wrong,” and a close friend who had knocked on deaths door several times simply asked her, “Jody, if you knew if you were going to die in a month what would your regrets be?” she says.
Frozen for a second, she sat there stumped by his question. Then, Africa, a distant land she never had been to, entered her mind.
She immediately began planning her first journey, which would be one of more than 30 of her 26 to 36-hour trips from the San Francisco Bay Area to Africa to date.
“I think that most people completely forget that it’s taken that long to get there,” once guests arrive and see the wildlife while on safari, says Jody.
But it’s also the experience she provides guests.
“I think that I provide an opportunity for [guests] to see things a little differently,” says Jody about what separates her from other safari companies.
For 10 years she has provided guests with her first experience of Africa.
“My experience of Africa was going with someone who was acutely interested in it,” she says about her first guide who took her into the wilds of the African bush. “He really knew what he was talking about and loved the bush, really loved the intricacies of the way things worked in life at least in the bush.
She’s often joined by guides who are native to the countries she leads safaris. They work together complementing each other’s knowledge and bridge cultural divides, she says.
“Of course they know far more than I do because they live there and I don’t, but I can interpret it in a way where an American mind can understand it or look more deeply into it from a place of familiarity from their own experience at home,” says Jody.
One of the biggest complements she’s ever experienced was when she dropped one of her groups off at the airport and “not one of them had a dry eye. They did not want to leave,” she says.
“When I left them at the airport and I drove away I had that sense of pride that I was the one lucky enough being on the safari with them and that they left me feeling the way they felt. What better complement is there?” Jody asks.
Jody doesn’t remember the name of the girl who broke her heart, because she found it again with her first trip to Africa in 1998 and with Katharine Cole, who she met in 2002 and married in 2008.
(Photo: Shannon Wentworth)
The Draw of Africa
“There is a tug on me, either my heart or my spirit or my soul,” says Jody about her draw to Africa, “it’s more, almost a spiritual draw.”
“Some people are drawn to cultures and they like spending time in the cities and feeling the vibrancy of busy life around them,” says Jody, who called the San Francisco Bay Area home for nearly 30 years until she moved to Atlanta, Georgia in 2013. “I’m more drawn to the sounds of the wind blowing through the acacia trees, watching animals do what animals do and listening to the bugs.”
That sound, the sound of existence and life is one of the things Jody loves sharing with her guests when she brings them to Africa.
To get people in the African mood, Jody meets with guests six months before their departure. She gives them reading materials and talks with them about Africa.
“It’s a very hands-on experience getting ready for safari, especially with Wild Rainbow African Safaris,” says Jody.
Just before taking the journey she asks guests to bring three things with them on their adventure:
- An open mind
- A flexible attitude
- Your child-like curiosity
“I love taking people there and watching them see Africa,” says Jody. “That is the thing that turns me on the most.”
To celebrate Wild Rainbow African Safaris 10 year anniversary, Jody has planned several epic trips in 2015, including a Mount Kilimanjaro climb and Tanzania safari, a Zimbabwe canoeing and walking safari, an unforgettable Rwanda gorilla safari, a classic Kenya and Tanzania safari and a diverse South Africa walking safari.
To book your Wild Rainbow African Safari adventure, contact Heather Cassell at Girls That Roam Travel at Travel Advisors of Los Gatos at 408-354-6531at or .
To contract an original article, purchase reprints or become a media partner, contact ">editor [@] girlsthatroam [.] com.
