June 7-16, 2002

Game taken: sable, kudu, zebra, impala, bushbuck, baboon

Owner: Dave & Yvonne Chatham

PH: Graham Chatham

Location: near the Gwayi Valley - Private, unfenced property with no barriers separating it from Hwange Park. For 10 days, I was the only hunter on 44,000 acres. We saw lion, elephant, one leopard, and hundreds of buffalo.

This was my first safari, and it was an incredible experience. The service and food were way above my expectations.

Graham is a great PH, and his trackers, Albert & Kuntu are phenomenal.

We hunted hard for the trophies, and did a lot of walking - just the way I wanted to hunt. Never any shooting from the truck.

Booked through John LaSala of African Hunting Adventures.

www.africanhuntingadventures.com

How about some details of the hunt? Did you have any hassles at all? What did your PH and his family have to say about the current situation and how it was going to resolve itself?

We encountered no hassles at all relating to the political mess over there. Of course, for 10 days, we encountered .... nobody.

Once we got to Vic Falls, again - if I had not read on the internet of the "turmoil", I would have never known there had been an election, or that anybody had a problem with it.

Of course, we noticed the poverty, and the mad scramble for US dollars, but it was my first trip to the third world, so that was to be expected.

If I could, I would leave right now to go back.

Our hosts never talked much about it, but the impression I got was that they were not in immediate threat of losing their land, but that there were never any guarantees over there.

This type of problem is all that these "pioneer" folks have ever known. They just learn to live with it.

We're spoiled in the U.S.

And that's the way I like it.

Rick.