I’ve been lucky recently with good guides. It is especially pleasant when you don’t want or need one, but they are being forced on you by regulations of the place you are visiting, like in Namibia’s Brandberg — home to some of the world’s most famous rock art dating as far back as two thousand years. Gwen, a local Damara girl and our assigned guide, was the only woman guide in Brandberg and, once I got her talking, told me all about how difficult it was to even apply for this job as a woman. The association wouldn’t let her take the guide’s exam (which she must have aced judging from her extensive knowledge of everything growing, crawling and flying around), but she stood her ground and got her way. Respect.

http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docid=8137343146110393838&hl=en&fs=true

Gwen explaining the clicking sounds of the Damara language, and the
symbols that represent them