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The guide behind it
Doctor Mukote
He has guided across Eastern and Southern Africa since 2006. Twelve local languages, more than ten countries a year. POA Safaris is the third company he built.
20+
Years guiding
10+
Countries yearly
12
Local languages
Who he is
Big DOC
Safari specialist. Born and raised in Zimbabwe.
“Safaris aren’t his job. They’re his lifestyle.”
Doctor Makanyara Mukote has led more safaris through Eastern and Southern Africa than he has kept count of. Most travellers meet him as DOC. Other guides call him Big DOC, which tells you roughly where he sits in that world.
What people remember afterwards is rarely the itinerary. It is that he takes his time with you, asks real questions, and is as comfortable with a park ranger as with someone who has never left Europe before.
He works in over ten countries every year and knows people in all of them: rangers, camp owners, village chiefs, other guides. He speaks twelve local languages. That network opens doors no booking platform reaches, and it took twenty years to build.
Ask him about a bird, a tree, a tribe or a stretch of road and you get the whole answer. On his time off he patches up his tent and goes back into the bush anyway.
The guiding career
Two decades before POA ever existed
2006
The first qualification
Doc trained with Safari Training Services in Zimbabwe, where he grew up. Tracks, animal behaviour, terrain: the fundamentals, learned long before anyone hands you a vehicle full of people.
2008
Into conservation
Two years later he joined Field Environmental Conservation Africa, moving from showing people wildlife to protecting it. Habitat work and anti-poaching, the parts of the job with no guests watching.
Eastern Cape
The private reserves
He moved to South Africa for good and spent several years guiding the private game reserves of the Eastern Cape Province. Smaller traversing areas, closer game viewing, the same guests for days at a time.
15 years
Overlanding
Then overlanding took hold. For close to fifteen years Doc ran multi-country expeditions for one of the continent’s leading adventure companies. Long routes, border posts, camps struck at dawn. Almost everything POA does on the road traces back to that stretch.
The road to POA
He built this three times. The third one stuck.
POA Safaris is what was left standing after two companies closed. One ended when a partnership ran its course. The other went down with the rest of the industry in 2020.
March 2013
Kanyaira African Safaris & Adventures
Doc set up his first company with two partners and put his own name behind it. Bookings came slowly at first, the way they do when nobody has heard of you yet. The 2014 season changed that and Kanyaira found its feet. It ran for four years, until the two partners moved on to other careers and the company closed with them.
October 2017
Asante African Travels
The pause did not last long. Later the same year, with help from a friend, Doc started again under the name Asante African Travels. Small groups, the format he already knew worked. Asante ran for three years and was building something real. Then March 2020 shut every border on the continent, cancelled an entire season, and pushed most small operators out of the business permanently. Asante was one of them.
December 2020
POA Safaris
Nine months later, borders still closed and the industry flat on its back, Doc registered POA Safaris. There were no bookings to take and not much reason to believe there soon would be. He set it up anyway and waited for the roads to open.
July 2021
The first tour
A German couple took the first booking: twenty-six days through Botswana. Not a cautious trial run but a full expedition, with two people willing to travel at a point when most were not. POA has run without a break since.
400+
Travellers guided across the three companies Doc has built since 2013.
What we stand for
Where the money goes
Every safari we run moves money through a country. The only question that matters is who ends up holding it.
01
Local first
Lunch comes from the roadside stall rather than a hamper packed in Johannesburg. Souvenirs come from whoever made them. We hire local guides in every country we cross. The money stays where you are standing.
02
Conservation fees, paid up front
Park and conservation fees sit inside the tour price instead of appearing as an extra at the gate. Those fees pay the rangers and the anti-poaching work that keep these parks worth crossing a continent for.
03
Community projects
We work with community projects in the countries we travel through and choose suppliers who employ locally. Sustainable tourism gets printed on a lot of brochures. On the road it means watching where each payment lands.
04
Nothing on your route is untested
Every camp, lodge and third-party operator on your itinerary has been used by us first. Anything that falls short does not make the route.
How we run trips
Small groups, no surprises
Six to twelve people
We cap every group at twelve. Small enough for roads the big buses cannot take, and small enough to change plan when something better turns up. You will know everyone by day three.
You know who is driving
Doc guides every departure on our calendar. Private trips run on your dates, so he sometimes hands one to a guide he has worked alongside for years. No call centre either way, and no handover to a stranger at arrivals.
The price is the price
We write out park fees, activities, accommodation and transport before you book. Nothing gets added once you're already out there.
Talk to Doc directly
Send a message and Doc reads it. Ask about dates, group size, or whether a route suits the people you are travelling with.