I'm leaving for Zimbabwe and Namibia on May 6th. I have emailed my outfitter (Boet Nel) in Namibia 4 times in the last two weeks and have yet to receive a reply confirming the whole arrangement. Should I be getting nervous about now?

Jeff

internet access can be quite sketchy over there.

try sending a fax.

I can certainly understand your worries. I did hunt with Boet Nel last year, and I don`t think you need to worry about the arrangements. He`s a honest and trustworthy guy.. Why don`t you give him a call.. That kind of connections can also be quite difficult.. At least the cell phone in my experience.. Do you have his number?

quote:

Originally posted by Anders:
I can certainly understand your worries. I did hunt with Boet Nel last year, and I don`t think you need to worry about the arrangements. He`s a honest and trustworthy guy.. Why don`t you give him a call.. That kind of connections can also be quite difficult.. At least the cell phone in my experience.. Do you have his number?

ummmmm, no I don't....Do you? Thanks.

Telephone him, and leave messages for him to get back to you.

A FAX is a good idea, too.

George

You have a pm, Jeff Alexander.

I agree with George, pick up the phone! E-mail can be hit or miss in any of Africa.

Hey Jeff!

Where are you hunting first? In Zim with barry? I'm leaving the 4th of May, hunting down by Buffalo Range.

If I don't see or talk to you have a great trip!!!!

quote:

Originally posted by Jeff Alexander:
I'm leaving for Zimbabwe and Namibia on May 6th. I have emailed my outfitter (Boet Nel) in Namibia 4 times in the last two weeks and have yet to receive a reply confirming the whole arrangement. Should I be getting nervous about now?

Jeff

Could very well be out hunting with no way of getting e-mail.

Jeff,

My father and I are heading over to hunt with him on June 13-27. I've had some contact via e-mail, but I am sure he is getting busy now. I hope you have a great time and look forward to hearing about your experience when you get back.

Northway

quote:

Originally posted by Anders:
You have a pm, Jeff Alexander.

Thanks Anders

quote:

Originally posted by Widowmaker416:
Hey Jeff!

Where are you hunting first? In Zim with barry? I'm leaving the 4th of May, hunting down by Buffalo Range.

If I don't see or talk to you have a great trip!!!!

Maybe we will get to visit while we are over there.

I'm hunting with Barry (actually Brent) in Kazuma and Matesi. Huge 45+" buffalo and 45+" sable have been guaranteed! Should be fun. I'm taking my Wife this time, and we are spending a week in Cape Town and a week in Namibia first. Should be fun.

quote:

Originally posted by Northway:
Jeff,

My father and I are heading over to hunt with him on June 13-27. I've had some contact via e-mail, but I am sure he is getting busy now. I hope you have a great time and look forward to hearing about your experience when you get back.

Northway

Looks like we might be sharing a camp. We are arriving in Windhoek on the 12th and start hunting on the 13th. hmmmmmmmmmmmmm

12 MAY 05 - THURSDAY
AIR SOUTH AFRICAN FLT:1753 STANDARD SNACK
CAPETOWN-WINDHOEK
Leave CAPETOWN 1030A EQP: CANADAIR REG JET
02HR 00MIN
AR WINDHOEK WDH 1130A NON-STOP

quote:

45+" buffalo and 45+" sable have been guaranteed!

Jeff

it is always a good idea to speak to the actual outfitter on the phone before booking a hunt. So telephone is always a good way to communicate when email fails. Maybe he is not at home and in the bush.

Don't forget spam filters (his or yours) can do unexpected things.

mike

often the outfitters they go in the bush and stay for weeks. Maybe for a hunt maybe for check the hunting areas. Is aboslutely normal.After, the day before leaving, they reply.

Jeff,

It looks like you will be there in May and us in June. Hope you have a great time. I'm starting to get the excitement flowing, but I still have both blacks and grizzly bears to kill before June, so I will be busy with hunting right up until the time we leave.

I read somewhere on AllAfrica that the main (only?) fiber optic cable between Namibia and SA and appearantly the rest of the world, was cut last week. Left the country without internet service for quite a while.

I was having problems getting ahold of a PH this winter and finally called him. We talked for fourty some minutes. The best twenty three bucks I ever spent on stress relief!

quote:

posted Apr 20, 6:00 PM
often the outfitters they go in the bush and stay for weeks. Maybe for a hunt maybe for check the hunting areas. Is aboslutely normal.After, the day before leaving, they reply.

That is exactly why I suggested to Dungbeetle in one of the three threads that are running on the (bookings agent) scenario ...

USE a BOOKING AGENT and then he can do all the correspondese for you, and remember what OLD TIMER RAY says, the price is the same if you use the right booking agent ...

Cheers Peter

Peter,

With respect, there is nothing like talking directly to the person with whom you're going to e spending a week.

mike

quote:

Originally posted by AussieMike:
Peter,

With respect, there is nothing like talking directly to the person with whom you're going to e spending a week.

mike

Absolutely!

Aussie Mike & Nitrox

What you say is good in THEORY we ALL would like to talk to the chap at the coalface ... but we live in a real practicle world not a world of we wish we could have this and that ...

I stand by my origional point ...

A lot of these guys you (prefer to talk to) are piss busy, not like (you and I) whom have time on our hands to sit down drink and drink a raft of nice wines and talk cr.p on the internet ... you guys obviosly dont know the bush TRUE AFRICA bush scene like the back of your hand ... some of these chaps have work to do, not waste time waffling, some dont have access or vast knowledge of the internet and the phones dont alweays work because some SOB has STOLEN the copper wires ... they are Africa chaps not sitting comfortable LazyBoy chairs in NZ or Aus ..

As I say it would be nice BUT it dont work that way ..

Cheers, just pouring a nice red to keep the blood thin and flowing

Peter

quote:

.... you guys obviosly dont know the bush scene like the back of your hand ....

With respect

Peter

My first safari and honeymoon in Zimbabwe I booked one plains game safari direct. Took over thirty phone calls and faxes. Actually I remember diallin once twenty times just to get ONE call through. Only one in five phone calls got through, some went to some woman in Jo'burg believe it or not, not Bulawayo even though I dialled the right numbers.

Also booked cottages direct with Parks - Hwange Park in Nantwich and Main Camp. Cost by the way was around $12 per night for a 15 bed cottage.

Booked hotels in Vic Falls, and near the Great Zim ruins.

Booked two cars direct with the car rental agencies from Australia.

The only thing I used a (travel) agent for was the airfare, the first nights accomodation and a short canoe trip on the Zambezi.

The days before the internet.

I'm not happy unless I speak to the guy doing the hunt or at least his boss. I want to hear his voice and hear his answers. I want to have an idea if I will like hunting with the guy.

Funnily it is also quicker than using a middle man as there is no need to relay questions and answers. Ever play the game as a kid where you stand in a big circle and whisper something to the kid to the left. What is whispered to you from the last kid on the right? No remotely the same.

Mate, I understand agents make the outfitters life easier and have no problem using them when necessary. But there is nothing like direct contact. Face to face is the best.

As an agent booking for a single outfitter, your own family, you are quite different from almost all other agents.

Nitrox

You did very well,

I have MUCH admiration for your perserverance, but remember those were the DARK AGES when we did it all ourselves ..

Things have changed considerably, we are now year 2005 where we pay soeone else for a service and we then just sit back and DRINK nice RED wines watch hunting movies and await the tickets to arrive by courier post ...

If we dont keep up with modern society we fall behind the times and become extinct ...

BUT then again, if that is your mode of operation that is fine ... just that I believe you are possibly in the minority, as busy people use other methods to get the booking done I believe, rather than do all the leg work themselves, but that is just my own stupid personal opinion !!!

Another problem when trying to call Africa by telephone is our good friend ( Jim Fish ) will answer the phone and not understand a word of your Aussie Accent or an American twang, and he will say BWANA is sleeping or BWANA in bush, so TELECOM makes more money

Regards, Peter

quote:

I have MUCH admiration for your perserverance, but remember those were the DARK AGES when we did it all ourselves ..

Nowadays most good PHs have up to date Sony laptops (usually newer than mine), many have a website, almost all have an email address and when they are in the bush their wife or girlfriends answers. My mobile phone worked in the Matetsi in a lot of places, and in many more places in the bush in Zimbabwe than in the bush or ordinary countryside of Australia. Many camps have telephones, maybe satelite phones.

Easy isn't it nowadays to communicate directly which was my whole point.

quote:

... some dont have access or vast knowledge of the internet and the phones dont alweays work because some SOB has STOLEN the copper wires ...

Funny how you were arguing how backward Africa was only a post ago? Gone a complete circle.

quote:

sitting comfortable LazyBoy chairs in NZ ..

Keep drinking that good Aussie red we send over there.

Peter,

On September 11, 2001 I was sitting in Dushanbe about 300km from Osama Bin Ladens northern training camp - I've got a bit of experience working in "difficult" countries. Took me five days to get a phone call home to say that BBC reports of rioting in the streets of Dushanbe were false. And, I run an international health consultancy.

My daily fees are way less than half the day rate for a DG hunt and I manage to make myself available to my clients with a guaranteed 24 hour response time - I provide no cost follow up advice on all my jobs.

How do I do this, hunt in the outback, run a 277 acre farm without employees and do some weeks of clinical work in rural and remote areas? By planning and being efficient.

My Iridium sat phone cost me less than the cost of a single days DG hunting, outgoing calls cost me $US1.50/minute and incoming calls are free. Costs are the same if I ring my next door neighbour or the other side of the world. I have data capability but don't use it - clients emailing me get an autoresponse with the sat phone number. I have a special email address given only to paying customers. Voicemail on the sat phone means I don't have it ring and disturb the pigs or whatever.

The hunting season in Africa is about thirty weeks so assuming a PH is fully booked, the average hunt is seven days and there are an average of 1.5 hunters at a time, he has 45 hunters a year. Say each hunter wants to talk to the PH for an hour, that's less than an hour a week he spends talking to hunters and even if he did it all on his sat phone that's still only the day rate for four or five days hunting. I suspect that that is a lot less than he pays to outfitters.

I have no problem with people using outfitters but I'd never book a hunt if I thought the PH couldn't find the time to have a chat on the phone with me, regardless of whether I booked through an outfitter. The idea of spending a week or more in an isolated spot in a foreign country with an armed man I had had no contact with takes me well outside my comfort zone. Other current posts make clear that some "PHs" are not the most trustworthy people.

Sorry about the rant but you've pushed some of my buttons - being "busy" is a crap excuse people in the West use to try to excuse their rudeness and poor service. It's not what I want to encounter in Africa.

mike

Hey AussieMike

Now you have hit on a good business solution for those ( rock spiders ) in South Africa ...

If we can get ALL the jaapies to purchase a satt phone like you have then the problem is solved ... We can get rid of the lazy SOB's like myself, we will become redundant, so then I can sit all day sampling the good Aussie Red's which are cheaper than NZ equivalent and the hunters can yap for hours to the PH in Africa ...

Can you do a good deal on those phones and I will start marketing them on my website maybe ???

Regards, Peter - Old burnt out Rhodesian

Jeff,

You'll be starting your hnt on the 18th with Brent, I'm hunting with him till the 18th!

good luck on your Buff and Sable!!!

quote:

Originally posted by Widowmaker416:
Jeff,

You'll be starting your hnt on the 18th with Brent, I'm hunting with him till the 18th!

good luck on your Buff and Sable!!!

COOL! If you see a big buff or sable, tie it to a tree for me And try to wear Brent out a little - I have a hard time keeping up with him....he never slows down and has about a 10 foot stride!

I wonder if the problem isn't the email as suggested. I sent Roger Whittall's Humani Safaris three email over two weeks and copied booking agent Keith Atcheson on the last, which asked whether the first two had been received. Today a day after the last got emails from Humani and Keith asking me to resend due to non receipt.

JPK

Jeff,
Yea! I see if I can get a rope around one of those buggers neck! how's that?

And about Brent, I take 3 steps to everyone of his! I think you're right on with the "10" foot stride! I have a idea, I'll tie some weights on his ass, maybe that will slow him down a bit for me and wear him down some for you! He is a hoot to hunt with, I'll tell you that much! I have a great video of him catching a Night Ape!

Guys,

I must say that if I ever get to hunt a really remote part of Africa the last thing I would to see is my PH doing in the field is running a modern office hitched up to email and the net and sat phones...Many many folks here have complained about PH (or even their trackers in one case!) taking/making constant calls on their cell phones while driving around the conssesion or in camp..That to me would destroy the atmosphere of the hunt...

I know the PH needs a link to the outside world for safety reasons, but I would be quite happy for that to be a HF radio worked on the appropriat schedual...

Regards,

Pete

Pete E

I have to agree with you, I had both, once with a cell phone didn't really care for that but I didn't let it bother me. Then having a 2 way radio in the truck, that seemed more like Africa.

but as you said, they really need to be able to get in touch with the outside world, to some extent.....