We are back home.

As Tony mentioned, him and Greg are on their way too.

I think everyone had a great time.

A group of different nationalities, UAE, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Australian and Tanzanians

Funny lot, every single one of them!

Alan and his crew did their usual and made everyone feel at home.

Got reminded of the contrast of food offered by Emirates and our safari chef!

We got offered such exotic dishes as buffalo hooves!!

Buffalo tail!!

Buffalo tung!

When one has literally tons of fantastic meat, eating hooves seems to me a bit extreme!

Some even had it for BREAKFAST!

We had a new chef at camp, and I made sure him and me understand each other.

Worked like a charm.

Buffalo steaks 60 seconds short of becoming charcoal, just the way I like them!

Propper HUMAN cooked meat.

Unlike the ones fit for hyenas everyone else fancies!

I wrote this while in camp but seems I have forgotten to post it.

Lots of elephants, including shootable ones, something we have not seen before.

Years ago in the north we used to see several poached carcases.

Not any more.

Lots of buffalo, zebra, kongoni, bushpigs and warthogs.

Wildebeest, hippos and crocs.

Impala but not as numerous as we had wished to see.

Incredible amount of fish in the lake.

Our game scout was throwing a hand line into the water and pulling it in, always with a big fish on it.

Something which never ceases to amaze me is how our trackers see animals, and track!

I thought they had some super human powers.

Then something happened and I realized they are only human, with certain short comings.

We were out tracking buffalo.

It started raining, and very cloudy of course.

We rely on our navigation on the trackers knowing where locations are.

Apparently if they could not see the sun their in built GPS malfunction!

Alan relies on GAIA GPS app on his phone.

After following the buffalo, we saw some eland.

Change of course and after the eland we went.

That did not last long, as we kept getting into other animals which did not help following the eland.

We thought of going back to the road, and calling the truck.

There was quite a discussion in Swahili between Alan and our trackers.

The jest of it was Alan's phone was out of battery.

And Nuni, one of our trackers, decided that the road was THAT AWAY!

Off we jogged at a fast paste, as we did not wish to get more wet.

A few klicks further, there was another Swahili discussion.

Everyone was looking at the sky.

It just dawned on us we were LOST!

No one knew where we were.

More guessing, and more klicks walking.

It was getting late.

I had a GPS on which I mark locations of animals we shoot.

I looked at it, and found the location of a reedbuck just over 3 kilometers away.

We thought if we got there, we might know where we are.

Off we went, wet and tired.

We came onto a large corongo which we have to cross.

Quite deep and not easy to get across.

We stopped and trying to see where we could cross.

Then Wayne says BUFFALO!

Right across the corongo, there were 5 bulls feeding happily towards us.

Alan gets the stick up, and points to the first one and says shoot!

Rifle goes off, and he drops.

SHOOT another one says Alan.

Another shot and this one is down too.

Shoot that one.

Within a few seconds we had 3 buffalo bulls down lying close together!

Complete change of attitude.

From being lost, to smiles all around!

After a few minutes, we found that the road was actually about 800 meters from us!

Too late to recover the buffalo, so we left them and headed towards the road, where we met our truck.

A bit tired, but very happy.

When I complained about being lost all day, both Alan and trackers said we would nto have gotten three buffalo if we had not gotten lost!

Again.

AFRICA WINS!

We went next morning with the tractor and recovered our buffalo.

INCREDIBLE HUNT, Saeed!!
Thank you for sharing so much with us and we enjoy it with you!!
I really want to hunt with Alan when I get walking again!! I took my first steps without a walker today, just a cane, coming home from Physical Therapy. Surprised my Registered Nurse wife!!
Life left in this old body!!

CheerZ,

WHAT A HOOT!!
Something you all will remember forever!!
That's what hunts are about!!

quote:

Originally posted by Bakes:
Sitting in the Emirates lounge having just polished off a plate of sushi. Getting ready for the 13.5 hour flight home

Had a fantastic trip with Saeed, Maktoum and Alan and the crew. Met some new friends, like Greg and Wayne ( Wayne is young Ryan’s dad) Took some good animals with my very good PH Thabit and the trackers Thomas and Imani.

Madaba did treat you very well Tony. I reckon your Bushbuck is something special. One of the good things about returning to home is the warm feeling of remembering great times spent in a special place with a family of good friends. Saeed and the Vincents make these hunts very special for the entire AR family.

Saeed wearing shorts,looking like a stick insect, would be the most hilarious picture and a sight to see.

quote:

Originally posted by fulvio:
Saeed wearing shorts,looking like a stick insect, would be the most hilarious picture and a sight to see.

I did wear shorts.

And jumped in the river in LU5.

Same river we saw and counted 35 crocs in it the previous evening!

During day light the crocs seem to disappear!

Rene and Maktoum were no too impressed.

But, my friend Walter jumped in and joined me!

We kept getting even funnier looks after that episode!

quote:

And jumped in the river in LU5.

I remember LU5 well.

The SCI party of bigwigs who showed up with wives and teenage kids who thought frolicking in the river was fun even though I warned them (despite being scorned) not to take things for granted.

Sure, there were no visible crocs in daylight because they hit bottom in the riverbed depressions but come dark they thickly congregated under the mess area, their eyes lighting up under the beam of a torch.

For the remainder of the hunt frolicking in the water was strangely forgotten.

Thanks again for showing your adventures with us!

Looks like a great time was had by all of you. Thats the way its supposed to be.

All those heads and I don't see any of the crocs.

Congrats on everyone ending up safe and no one hurt or shot.

A big thank you to Saeed for sharing all this with us.
George

Perfectly cooked that Reedbuck leg....just saying...

quote:

Originally posted by Bakes:
Perfectly cooked that Reedbuck leg....just saying...

Well, you and Greg had a lot to live up to.

Walter set the standards.

Glad he taught you something useful!

Now where are the shoot off pictures..

Coming.

Too many things to do.

quote:

Originally posted by Saeed:

We had a new chef at camp, and I made sure him and me understand each other.

Worked like a charm.

Buffalo steaks 60 seconds short of becoming charcoal, just the way I like them!

Propper HUMAN cooked meat.

That is one of the worst things that I have ever seen on the internet!

quote:

Originally posted by Fjold:

quote:

Originally posted by Saeed:

We had a new chef at camp, and I made sure him and me understand each other.

Worked like a charm.

Buffalo steaks 60 seconds short of becoming charcoal, just the way I like them!

Propper HUMAN cooked meat.

That is one of the worst things that I have ever seen on the internet!

Human intelligence increased considerably after they have discovered cooking.

And stopped feeding like hyenas!

A word of caution when eating red meat in most African countries: they do NOT have the strict sanitary screenings as in the western world so having your steak rare or medium-rare could be a risky treat.

We were brought up as kids to eat our meat either medium to well, or simply well done and in later life has often led to altercations with western chefs who tell us we don't know how to eat meat.

quote:

Originally posted by fulvio:
A word of caution when eating red meat in most African countries: they do NOT have the strict sanitary screenings as in the western world so having your steak rare or medium-rare could be a risky treat.

We were brought up as kids to eat our meat either medium to well, or simply well done and in later life has often led to altercations with western chefs who tell us we don't know how to eat meat.

I have only found this obnoxious behavior in France!

Some chefs actually refuse to cook my steak well done.

I refuse to leave until they do!

I have returned steaks back up to three times to have them cooked properly!

And as you can imagine, I leave no tip!

I am not going to let some stupid, self serving cook tell me what to eat!

Contrast that to Switzerland.

Where the chef says please let me know if it is not done well enough and I will prepare you another !

quote:

Originally posted by Saeed:

quote:

Originally posted by fulvio:
A word of caution when eating red meat in most African countries: they do NOT have the strict sanitary screenings as in the western world so having your steak rare or medium-rare could be a risky treat.

We were brought up as kids to eat our meat either medium to well, or simply well done and in later life has often led to altercations with western chefs who tell us we don't know how to eat meat.

I have only found this obnoxious behavior in France!

Some chefs actually refuse to cook my steak well done.

I refuse to leave until they do!

I have returned steaks back up to three times to have them cooked properly!

And as you can imagine, I leave no tip!

I am not going to let some stupid, self serving cook tell me what to eat!

Contrast that to Switzerland.

Where the chef says please let me know if it is not done well enough and I will prepare you another !

Just got back from France. The Tartar is everywhere and looks like a raw hamburger.

That’s because it is raw hamburger…

quote:

Originally posted by jdollar:
That’s because it is raw hamburger…

Reminds me of a time we had dinner in a posh restaurant in Dubai years ago.

An Australian friend ordered steak tartar, after him I ordered a well done steak.

The waiter repeated WELL DONE, which my Australian heard, he shouted I DON't WANT MY STEAK TARTAR WELL DONE!

I love QUALITY Steak Tartare, or Steak American as it is called in Belgium!! Ate it all the time when I was working there in my Corporate career 80s- 90s. Lunches, and my wife not with me...
My RN and ARNP, (nurse practitioner) admonishes me sternly when I order it on our cruises!! "You're going to get beef born diseases, liver flukes, maybe parasites"... so far I haven't!! She thinks disgusting!! But doesn't leave the table. Question, did you buy the travel insurance with hospitalization....??!@...

I guess that is like Little Johnny caught by his dad behind the barn pounding his meat!!" DAD- "Johnny, that will make you go blind!!"
Johnny- "Dad, can I stop when I need glasses??!!"

"I will order medium rare for dinner...."

Thank you Saeed. Alan's (?) rifle, resting against the tree in one pic, appears much longer than yours? Longer barrel/LOP? Curious