MAGAZINE ARTICLES

Over the years, Ivan has appeared in BBC Wildlife magazine two times, and several times in the British press... Sunday Times, Evening Standard and The Times. He has also been profiled in many top agent newsletter and brochures.

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LICENSED TO GUIDE
Ivan has been featured in Susie Casenove's book, "LICENSED TO GUIDE", a book about the top safari guides. Susie was originally born in Africa and founded a London based travel company specializing in tours to Africa.Her company became known as one of the best and she came to know and become close friends with many of Africa's guiding personalities.

Here is an excerpt from the book:
"Ivan, yet another Zimbabwean, is the youngest of the twelve guides I have profiled in this book. His youthful zest for life and vibrant energy are contagious and heartwarming. When on safari with him I was convinced I could do anything, stalk a buffalo, climb a tree, walk up to elephants and count the stars. For a quick beat of time, I felt nothing was beyond me. Mara Pools is his spiritual home but he takes enormous pleasure in visiting all safari areas in Africa, particularly little visited places, spurred on by his insatiable curiousity of the unknown. He sees all aspects of life at a slightly different angle and as a lateral thinker he comes up with alternative slants on most accepted beliefs and convictions."


Excerpts from Travel and Leisure magazine, by David Herndon
© All rights reserved 2001
Date: August 2001
Published by Travel + Leisure
 Ivan in Travel and Leisure
Photograph by Kurt Markus
© All rights reserved 2001
TRAVEL & LEISURE
The brightest star to emerge from the Zimbabwe Professional Guides Association in the last decade is Ivan Carter. The association has some of the most rigorous licensing qualifications on the continent, and, at 20, Ivan became the youngest candidate ever to pass the exam. Now 30, he operates the six-tent Vundu Camp on the Zambezi River in Zimbabwe's Mana Pools National Park. Like other top Zimbabwe guides he has recently branched out to countries such as Tanzania and Zambia because of the farm takeovers and political violence at home.

As a teenager, Ivan apprenticed himself to John Stevens, one of the country's premier guides. But whereas Stevens epitomizes the formal, "socks-pulled-up" style, Ivan wears no socks at all - and only reluctantly straps on rafting sandals.

Scanning the flood plain through binoculars, Ivan points out buffalo, elephants, waterbucks, eland, impala, baboons and zebras. Our early morning efforts to track a pack of wild dogs prove futile, so we leave the Land Cruiser and set off on foot. Ivan likes to take his guests close to the elephants. We approach slowly, letting the huge beasts hear and smell us. He recognizes some members of the herd. Pointing to a young male, he says, "If he rushes up to kick dust on us, don't worry. Just keep taking photos." As if on cue, the male makes a brief charge, but it's all bluster.

The elephants are hoovering fallen acacia pods like potato chips. Carter picks out a lone male for us to follow; the 4.5 ton tusker doesn't mind our presence one bit. We sit near a tree that's dropping plenty of pods, and Ivan rattles a handful of the snacks he's collected. Within minutes, the elephant's trunk ids five feet from me. My initial apprehension soon gives way to trust. "You'll get emotional" Ivan had promised as we set out. He was right.


Excerpts from The 15 Best Safari Guides: "Into the Bush with the Best"
© All rights reserved 2001
 INTO THE BUSH
Nobody can promise the Big Five every time, but these docents of the bush guarantee the best African wilderness experience money can buy.

Another John Stevens alumnus, Carter was, in 1991, the youngest person to pass Zimbabwe's exacting guide examinations and holds professional hunter and canoe guide licences.

He is one of the new generation of Zimbabwe guides, as comfortable leading a party of three or four through his favorite habitat, Mana Pools National park, as he is addressing a rapt audience at Stanford University or the Edinburgh Zoo. He leads safaris in all of the southern African countries, and at the time of writing, had just come off a safari with Nmibia's Bushman tribe.