From Dagga Runner to Mountain Guide: How KZN Man Built a Tourism Empire in the Drakensberg
- A Bergville man built a tour company employing 20 people after his past nearly cost him everything in the Drakensberg
- Caiphus Mthabela spent years crossing dangerous mountain passes before a 2000 arrest reshaped his entire future forever
- South Africans are now rallying around Mthabela, with some pushing to crowdfund his long-overdue driver’s licence for him
A Bergville man once crossed the Drakensberg's roughest passes to survive. Caiphus Dilizamagugu Mthabela did not walk those mountains out of any love for nature.
Source: Instagram
Mthabela walked the mountains because he had no other way to feed his family. Today, he runs a tour guiding company and employs twenty people. But the road to that success ran straight through a prison cell.
Mthabela is from Bergville in the KwaZulu-Natal province. He shared his remarkable story with Instagram travel creator Jessica, known as @whereisjessica. The clip was posted to the platform on 9 April 2026.
A matric certificate and nowhere to go
Mthabela completed his matric in 1996 and immediately headed to Johannesburg. He had one clear goal, which was to find work and support his family. He spent all of 1997 and most of 1998 searching desperately for employment. Door after door closed in his face without a single opportunity emerging.
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With no income and no prospects, Mthabela made a difficult and dangerous decision. He joined a network of people who were selling dagga across the border. His routes took him deep into the Drakensberg passes toward Lesotho. He would buy from Basotho traders and carry supplies back through Mnweni. From there, the goods moved on to Ladysmith and then to Johannesburg. Those same mountain paths are the ones he walks today as a guide.
The arrest that turned everything around
On 11 March 2000, Mthabela was caught in Ladysmith with dagga. He was arrested and spent six months behind bars. What followed his release was a stroke of extraordinary and almost unlikely timing. The community around Mnweni was building a new cultural and hiking centre. Local people were being trained and registered as professional mountain guides. Mthabela joined the programme and threw himself into it completely. The mountains he had once navigated illegally became his career.
From the passes to a thriving business
He registered his own guiding company in 2015. Today, Mthabela proudly employs twenty people across various roles within his business. Some work as porters carrying luggage across the same passes he once crossed. Others have been trained by him personally and now work as guides themselves.
Watch the Instagram clip below:
Mzansi reacts to the story
Briefly News compiled some comments from the post below.
@jennifermalec suggested:
“Can we please crowdfund this guy a driver's licence?”
@itsyangachief said:
“I thought y’all said there were jobs in 1997.”
@grown.ocean wrote:
“What a great story! I always love it when people can reframe past choices that maybe weren’t the “ideal” route, not as a regret or as a mistake, but as paving stones on the journey. And these things are possible when people aren’t relentlessly punished for the things they did to survive.”
@tttburnham commented:
“I love ❤️ this. He has seen so much. Mzansi has been through so much in just 40-50 years. I'll never forget many of the stories I heard when I was in South Africa, Mozambique & Zimbabwe in 1998 - 2001.”
@_yourmissunshine_angel said:
“This is beautiful! You’ll always be led to what is yours ! It may not seem so now, but it’ll all fall into place. Believe what’s revealed to you, kneel when you do too. 🥹🙏May his cup be filled always.”
Source: Instagram
More about tour guides
- A Zimbabwe tour guide shared footage of a family of elephants stampeding through a watery area, forcing trapped visitors to rush to safety.
- A young woman shared a video showing her safari tour guides participating in a TikTok trend.
- One TikTok video shows a safari nearly going extremely wrong because of a hyperactive elephant walking past a group of people.
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Source: Briefly News
