Dries de Bruyn

In January 2004 I travelled to South Africa on Business for almost a month. As a group of work colleagues, we ended up taking one of the weekends I was there and spending it with Dries. A group of my colleagues and I hired him, after several of us had the great misfortune of being robbed by what we were told most likely were Somali thugs while walking to our Hotel several nights earlier. Dries gave us a solid rundown of what parts of town were good and bad, and advised us on several other travel issues conerning our safety in South Africa. He then led us on a 1 day guided tour of Pilanesburg and Sun City. I've never had a more relaxing time, where I was able to set the worries and stress of the previous week aside and just simply be with where I was at. Dries made that possible by his easy laid back demeanor, friendly open attitude, and vast wealth of knowledge on nature, pointing out almost every local bird speciec there was and several other animal sightings we had thanks to his knowledge of the area and keen eye. He also took us afterward for some adult fun at Sun City where we played a few card games, mostly slots though, and guided us around to the various attractions and fun things to do. Dries made what would have been a boring business trip into an epic adventure, one I will remember the rest of my life.