Couple boxes of these.

Fun to light a cigar with one, sit outside by a fire here and think of the fires next to which we sat there.

Lots of good memories and a bunch of tick bites this last trip.

Dung beetle ball.

A large porcupine quill I found. Makes the North American species look small.

Last trip a very unique trophy. A dog collar off a poachers dog I shot after the poacher siced the dogs on us after busting them. The poachers got away, but we got 5 dogs.

I always buy carved wooden figures for my four grandchildren, plus a few for myself. So far, I've given them carved rhinos, elephant, warthogs, kudu and gemsbok. I've bought them in Swakopmund, Outjo, and Otjiwarongo. If you haggle with the native artists, you can get them for under $10 each.

Beer

Yep. Porcupine quill.

I bought a pair of sandals made with automobile tire tread soles and springbok fur, from the street vendors outside Nelson Mandela's Soweto home.

I also bought the carved wooden figures, though I don't know how "authentic" they are. Several seemingly unrelated vendors told me that they had been hand-carved by their uncle...

Quills, elephant molar, key chains, rugby tshirts ( blue Bulls )

Double edge dagger I took from a poacher we caught on my way unguided Cameroon hunt. It has a 10" blade, was hand made from truck leaf spring, and has a nice leather handle and sheath.

quote:

elephant molar

Tread carefully

Poachers snares! I have quite an assortment of them. Also cups from the palm wine dealers!

Best regards, D. Nelson

I once considered trying to bring back a leopard blind I had spent two weeks in. The leopard was smarter than we were and I wanted some momento!

Best regards, D. Nelson

Interesting the (relatively) large number of poachers' artifacts brought back. That would probably be an interesting topic in itself.

Just curios and gifts for friends and family. I think the PHs have side deals with the little bazaars on the side of the road! Jaja. It was all pretty cheap and well appreciated by the recipients.

A carved elephant stool. A grass basket, with knots every bit as good a SW American native work.

I want the mortar and pedestal used to grind corn. Polished smooth and bright from years of use. Next time.

An infection on my thigh that erupted like a volcano. Thankfully, I had antibiotics along. Two years later and the scar remains.

quote:

Originally posted by SDSpink:
An infection on my thigh that erupted like a volcano. Thankfully, I had antibiotics along. Two years later and the scar remains.

Where from - not TZ by chance?

quote:

Originally posted by fujotupu:

quote:

Originally posted by SDSpink:
An infection on my thigh that erupted like a volcano. Thankfully, I had antibiotics along. Two years later and the scar remains.

Where from - not TZ by chance?

I have had the same. MRSA I was told.

quote:

Originally posted by fujotupu:

quote:

elephant molar

Tread carefully

Oh, it came with my other elephant stuff
Didn't smuggle it :-)

quote:

I have had the same. MRSA I was told.

What species where you hunting?

quote:

Originally posted by Duckear:
Couple boxes of these.

Fun to light a cigar with one, sit outside by a fire here and think of the fires next to which we sat there.

I have that box too! Man, we brought back all sorts of stuff, from the "duty" Ostrich eggs, to pillow covers for the den, wooden carvings of animals, even some porcupine quills from a road kill and some noshit pieces of mopane wood to burn.

A sand worm infection.

On the other note, tick bite fever, awesome headaches and fever
Battled it thru most of my last elephant hunt
On my way home in Harare, I met lady doctor from Uganda and she gave me some antibiotics which helped
I do believe she was an angel...

quote:

Originally posted by fujotupu:

quote:

Originally posted by SDSpink:
An infection on my thigh that erupted like a volcano. Thankfully, I had antibiotics along. Two years later and the scar remains.

Where from - not TZ by chance?

Nope, Zimbabwe.

On my first trip my buddy asked me to bring him back some rocks.

A rock from Northwest and a rock from Free State is what he got.

Dad came home with trinkets for everybody in the family, including the Blue Bulls jersey for that year.

Woven baskets, wooden giraffes, paintings, a small side table with a chess board on one side and the Big 5 carved on the other. A hand carved bread basket (way cool) other beads and trinkets as gifts to nephews, nieces and grandkid

. . . lucky beans.

Im a sucker for everything thats old..Just a few things I have is old maps from the countrys that I travelled to, old axe, a poachers trap, a turtle I bought my guides old ice axe in Pakistan last year and this year I bought my guides "inuit goggles" when hunting the NWT.

It is frowned upon to bring back pygmies nowadays.

All the usual stuff and knick knacks. Lots of pictures. Went to the Tag shop in Bulawayo and bought some great safari shirts. And the great treasure was some kind of crazy infection. Neither my doctor nor the Doctors at Loma Linda could figure it out. After a couple of rounds of IV antibiotics it seemed to go away.

Cheers, Steve

My most treasured souvenir from Africa is an axe made from a truck's leaf spring and a tree root that our tracker used daily on both of my hunts in Zambia in the 1990s.

He wouldn't sell it to me on my first trip, but relented on the second. He said the blade was shaped by his father in a makeshift forge.

It was amazing how quickly he could cut up downed trees that blocked the two-track roads in Mumbwa East with that axe.

Bill Quimby

quote:

Originally posted by bwana cecil:
Dung beetle ball.

Well, she brought back a set of earrings that LOOK like a nguqongqothwane ball. (They're actually a tiny gourd but look like what King Tsonga smashed up and rolled his smokes with in "Mr. Bones".)

I've brought back small stones (at least one from every place I've hunted,) quills and feathers, seed pods, a little vial of red soil from where I killed a gemsbok, a small bag of biltong... all sorts of things USDA would not be happy about. And a lot of the usual carvings, baskets, etc.
Much of it I keep here in my office at the courthouse to remind me why I continue to deal with so human dysfunction.

I came back with an African hunting addiction.

.
Wonderful lifetime memories ... Plus some snares, an axe and Anja an armful of dried seed pods, dried plants and seeds and quills!

.

I forget the proper name but two shots of penicillin cleared it up.

Poacher's arrow from side of highway (re-fletched it with guinea fowl feathers), crystal I found in hills of Namibia

The usual small carvings and jewellery pieces for gifts, a few recovered bullets, a pair of fly whisks made by the tracker from the tails of a gemsbok and a wildebeest, a couple of hats from the outfitters' companies, and enough photos (thousands) and memories for a lifetime.

I am still kicking myself for absent-mindedly leaving behind a small sitting-height set of shooting sticks made by one of the trackers specifically for the afternoon we spent lying in wait to ambush a warthog. They were nothing special, just a couple of branches lashed together with rope, but he was so happy to present them to me that I didn't have the heart to ever tell him I hadn't used them; just shot off my knee. I'm still hoping that the cleaning staff disposed of them when they cleaned my tent without him finding out that I had left them there...they were just leaning in the corner, waiting to be slipped into my gun case. I wanted them!