I agree that looking up at the southern cross on my last night (of my first trip!) and wondering if I'd ever get back was inspiring.
Sitting on the veranda of the lodge during thunder storms. Some of the sharpest lightning and loudest rolling thunder I've ever witnessed (except as noted below).
Attending the local High School rugby match during which, another of these storms hit and as the game went on realizing what pussies American football players are.
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Seeing one of the most beautiful rainbows ever streching across the veld (although this photo doesn't do it justice).
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Perhaps THE most memerable though was on our last trip when our plane being struck by lightneing leaving Heathrow and continued on to Baltimore!

quote:

Originally posted by 577NitroExpress:
jorge:

Your wife is F-I-N-E!!!!!!!!

You on the other hand....

J/k...about you.

Yeah, I get that shit all the time as in "She's married to YOU???" Guess she liked my..personality?? jorge

One afternoon when in camp I left the door to my hut open and went down to the main lodge to grab some food and drink. Upon walking back, I was about 20 yds from my hut when I noticed a warthog sitting on the step to my hut. He took one look at me and trotted off. When I got about 5 yds away, his partner decided to walk out of my hut after he spent some time investigating my gear. Never a dull moment.

The last evening sitting on the deck in South Africa, watching the sun go down, listening to the baboons and birds making a ruckus, the smell of the air... thinking I finally made it here. Me and the wife just looked at each other and smiled, both knowing what the other was thinking.

Arriving at Khartoum, Sudan airport, getting off the plane thinking "Darn, that's a lot of heat radiating off those engines!"

Of course that 140 oF heat never got less, no matter how far I got away from the plane.

Frans

Upon reflection, watching a 50 pound elephant bull stepping into a neighbouring hunting area and knowing that we had failed, after 15 hardcore days.. Not at the time (I cried), but, like I said, upon reflection

quote:

Originally posted by DavidC:
Never having made it across the pond....Reading all the great hunting reports on AR...

How pathetic is that...?!

Regards,
Dave

+1

1. Giving a soccer ball to the tracker's kids. I stuffed three deflated balls and a travel pump in my suitcase and then handed them out over there. This is an idea I got on AR and it was a good one.

Others: these all happened while being a tourist following the hunt. You guys that go and just hunt without doing anything else are really missing out:
1. Kayaking in Walvis Bay, Namibia, in a huge colony of fur seals. The seals must be lonely and just love to jump, splash and generally goof off with you. We also saw some dolphins, right up next to the kayak.
2. Sandboarding on Dune 7 in Walvis Bay. Great fun, and this was the first time I was ever on a snowboard. Ironic, as I live in Alaska. If you want to do this, get with Wayne at Dune 7 Sandboarding. He's got a 4-wheeler to take you to the top of the dune. Other companies make you walk to the top.
3. Last day at the lodge we were staying at to see the dunes at Sossusvlei before going back to the airport, the Unterlander Alphorn Trio from Germany played their Alphorn's for us following dinner. (Picture a Ricola commercial.) Contrary to the claim in their name, there are 4 Alphorns in the trio. Lies, all lies. It was really just the kind of odd thing that I couldn't have made up.

Lots of great experiences over the years, hunting and non-hunting. I would have to put marrying my wife in Africa at the top though (even if she doesn't read AR!).

jim

Only one safari so far – so not a lot of experience here, but there were so many memorable non-hunting moments on my trip. I have internalized the bulk of them and maybe one day I will want to sit down and share them with the world, but in the meantime I only care to share a few of them. Here is one.
The day after I shot my ele and we went back to collect the hide, tusks, some meat, etc for the tribal counsel, we were all day in this riverbed waiting for the ele to be rendered useful in the eyes of the Africans. I noticed that there was this little village boy (couldn’t have been more than 5 or 6 wearing tattered clothing, no shoes, etc. All of you who have been there have seen it. So I am going to forego any further description of the lad.
He was my absolute shadow all day. Every trip I took up the riverbed to check out the condition of my elephant, stretch my legs, take a leak, whatever, if I turned around, there was this kid with absolutely the most hollow eyes I could ever dream of seeing on another person. I did notice that he kept creeping closer and closer to me. Now we aren’t talking real close, but he had drawn to within about 20 yards and was steadily closing in – about a yard every thirty minutes or so. With all the activity going on around him, he was locked in everything I was doing. The cutters brought over some meat and started a fire for us and began roasting the meat. When it was “done†to their tastes, the cutters turned cooks began giving us (me, my brother and PH) the chunks for fire roasted ele. At this point, the kid’s eyes were blurry and you could see his mouth watering. Well he got a big old chunk of that meat. You have never seen someone so happy in all your days. He crouched down about 15 yards from us and gnawed happily on his chunk of meat for what seemed like an eternity before he finished it off. So what is one of my best memories? It would be watching the smile creep across that kid’s face when he got that meat and knowing that I provided it for him and he understood that - and most of all - he appreciated it.
Brian

Touring Victoria Falls with my brother after our elephant hunt in 2005. It was fantastic to get to experience that wonder of the world with him on his first trip to Africa. One of the women at the gate tried to rent him a rain jacket and he told her "no thanks-I flew 8000 miles to get wet" and boy did he. The childlike look of wonder in his eyes while we were walking around the Falls was priceless.

An elephant back safari and helicopter tour of the Falls with my daughters this past June was certainly a highlight. To hear your children laugh from pure pleasure at petting a baby elephant and see the unbridled joy on their faces as they feed huge adult elephants is something words fail to convey. I smile everytime I remember seeing them haggle with vendors at the outdoor markets as I think to myself...they are their mother's daughters.


Perry

Almost out of fuel at Asmera, Ethiopia in December,1987 before it became Eritrea, shooting a zero/zero ILS approach in a Herc on a Russian ILS system with no approach plates.

To stand under the same Boabab tree that Selous used to meet his hunting parties under. The man that started me on my African quest.

Opening the tent zipper at 2am under full moon to see a Lion looking back at me at nine paces in a National park with no rifle.
Standing at Tsavo Train Station and bridge.

quote:

David, pathetic is giving up, not yourself, okay?

BNagel

Thanks for the concern. I am just kidding around. Give up(?)...never. There is no fun in that.

When I read Mike's topic and thought about it I had to laugh. I really enjoy the reports and pictures of our members hunts. Books, videos, TV shows are great but, seeing people you know from this site go out and have a blast in Africa is alot of fun for me....

So, I guess not a pathetic situation but, certainly not 'optimal' at least until I get to post my own report after I return from a month in Tanzania...some day!

Best Regards,
Dave

quote:

Originally posted by JudgeG:
I've Been to the Mountop!

Your cajones are STEEL!!! Damn impressive Judge!!

They aren't steel, just so old that they're petrified.

Judge, that's a mental picture that I didn't want to imagine! jorge

After completing a hunt in Namibia with John Coleman, I return to Cape Town with him and rented a car and started north. I turned in the car in Durban and started to make reservations to return to Europe because this was NOT the Africa that I wanted to see.

I meet a young woman in Durban at a B and B who after I told her of my disappointment with what I had seen. She said "you must go to Mana Pools" Now the problem was how to get there. No one in Durban knew how to get there. I could fly to Harare but it was $1500 in 1990. Finally I learn of the train and took it to Johannesburg then to Messina and crossed the Limpopo at Beithbridge. Now What. No transport. It is past noon and will be dark in 5 hours. In the customs office is a farmer name George from Beatice said that I could go to his farm and spend the night then he would take me to Harare. Off we went.

The lady in Durban told me that the Sable Inn in Harare was the place to stay for world travelers. George pulled up to the Sable Inn and I unloaded my duffle. There were world travelers from everywhere in the courtyard and by the pool two Australian ladies were discreetly sunning themselves topless. George scanned the entire courtyard then the pool area then the Australian ladies. He said, " I have never seen anything like this before are you sure you will allright, come back to the farm if you need help" .

That day in the streets of Harare I learn how the black market works and twenty dollars later I had become a citizen of Zimbabwe and was able to buy plane tickets at their prices. Cheap. For $20 to $30 I was able to fly to Karbia find a 4 day canoe trip down the Zambezi starting in Mama Pools and finishing in Mozambique. With black market money that was about $80. It was all the wildlife that I had dream of seeing and the Africa that I had come looking for. I did miss Victoria Falls because I did not know what it was.

But the best is yet to come.

Back in Harare I was able to buy another ticket from Harare to Lilongwe to Johannesburg for less than $100. While I was on the Zambezi River my Zimbabwe citizenship expire and Sam at Sam's Travels said that he could renew it for twenty more dollars so I could get the cheap tickets, so I paid him. Onward to Malawi.

After ten days or so of traveling in Malawi I arrived at Mulanji. Mulanji is up in the mountains and the climate is different. I had not seen a white person in several days. I wandered though the markets and notice find plantations on the slopes of Mount Mulanji with big white house in the middle of the greenery. What was growing? Who live in these white houses? I found someone who spoke English and they told me that these were tea and coffee plantations. Towards evening I returned to my hotel had a beer and wondered what to do for dinner. In comes two German women who had attempted to climb Mount Mulanji but the rains had made them abandon the climb.

After a few minutes of talking with them they told me they were going to the country club for dinner. Country club, except for my hotel and the white houses all I could see was tin shacks and open sewage ditches. I'll go. After girls got clean up did girl stuff we got a cab and left for the country club. A mile down the road was large stucco white building it's glory was in the past set in the middle of a golf course. I am not a golfer so I can't judge the course but the tennis courts were cracked and the surface in need of repair.

We went inside and no one was there except the bartender and I had to buy a one day membership, for one dollar, I became a member of the Mount Mulanji Country Club. Within an hour the building was full of "Planters" as they called themselves, dressed in Khakis's and desert boots with the wives and children at the tables they drank and ate. Most of them were British and the crowd was interspersed with some native Malawians. I learn all about growing coffee and tea and about an unsure future in Africa. The evening came to an end and I was given a ride back to my hotel, the following day I left for Monkey Bay on lake Malawi. I did not appreciate that evening until several years later. For I had been a part of the last of colonial Africa for an evening. An Africa that I had seen in the movies years ago.

These are some interesting stories. That's funny about buying a Zim citizenship for a few days and does not surprise me in the least. Crazy Africa but that's why we love it.

My last night in the Makuti camp consisted of listening to a leopard sniff the back of my head from the other side of the mosquito netting...a distance of about 3 feet. The PH told me that is now a nightly ritual for the female leopard as she makes her rounds through the camp. Better her than the lions or hyenas around camp!

Returning 35 years later to exactly the same spot where I shot my first impala, in Mozambique... and shooting another impala!
No words to express the true feelings...

Oh, there's so many. Watching a troop of baboons climb to the top of a large kopje each and every morning to themselves view the sunrise and feel the warmth. Eating fresh sable steaks, bacon wrapped roan medallions, finely ground buffalo burgers, sweet and sour bushbuck liver and onions, sitting next to a warm and beautiful leadwood fire on the cold evenings, listening to the elephants and cape buffalo coming in to water in the darkness, lions roaring, hyenas laughing. . . .