When you fly into a destination you are reliant on others for getting around – some journeys are manageable on foot, and others by e-bike. But more often than not, one has to call a taxi… and who better to call than, Chris Bere.

Chris is more than just a taxi driver, he’s a good conversationalist and delights in telling stories about his home city, Victoria Falls. One such story is when he helped to rescue a snared warthog… on his way to the shopping mall one morning he sees a warthog lying in the bushes alongside the road with a snare around its mouth, and being proactive, calls the Victoria Falls Wildlife Trust. He keeps his eye on the warthog and follows it as it’s moving away.

Within twenty minutes the National Parks team and their anti-poaching unit as well as the vet and the team from the Victoria Falls Wildlife Trust had arrived. The warthog was darted but didn’t succumb to the tranquiliser immediately and chose to run off. “We had to run after it and catch it, my clothes were full of blood.”  The vet managed to cut the wire snare off, clean the wound and then spray it with antibiotic medicine. Once that was all done, they let it go and watched as the warthog ran away into hiding. Chris said it must have been thinking ‘I don’t want to hang around with these people’, he was just really happy that it had survived. It was one of the lucky ones.

Chris Bere also comes with a wealth of tourism knowledge having worked in various aspects of industry, starting of as a photographer of those brave (or crazy) enough to leap of the Victoria Falls Bridge. From there he worked for a company that was contracted to take video and stills on the Shearwater Safaris white water rafting trips.

When the Zimbabwe political situation of the early 2000s caused a downturn in tourism he left Vic Falls to work in Zambia with Bundu Adventures. His experience in photography and videography saw him join on the production side, taking, editing and producing the videos and photos for their adventure clients. Fast forward several years to 2005 and Chris stared his taxi business.

He explains that not only does he do local trips within Vic Falls and its surrounds, but even goes as far as Hwange, and, as we experienced, to the Kazungula border post, and into Kasane in Botswana.  Should a client need a transfer that goes beyond his time and operational area, organises with one of his KAZA region friends and colleagues to do the trip – we had the experience of being picked up by his friend Ivan for our trip from Jollyboys Backpackers in Livingstone to the Zambia/Zimbabwe border and then continued with Chris to our destination, Shongwe Oasis, from there.

I ask him how he gets his clients, and he says, like us, its mostly through word of mouth and is often repeat business.

“If they are really happy with the service that I give them, they recommend their friends, then they will come back to me. And their friends will also refer me to their friends,” he says, “it’s become a referral business.”  

He’s even had clients that give him their itinerary and ask if he has better suggestions – such id his likeability and knowledge of the tourism space. He tells us that he has big plans for the future, and that he hopes to put all his knowledge to good use planning itineraries and operating tours through Zimbabwe.

I’ve no doubt that whatever he puts his mind to will successful, and I look forward to ‘watching this space’ until the next time we need transfers in the Vic Falls region.

Get in touch with Chris Bere by WhatsApp – +263 77 265 6416 or by email chrisberes54@gmail.com