Africa Safari - Wendy & Tom on the African continent
Ibbes buck. Click to Enlarge
Oryx hunt. Click to Enlarge.
Jungle kitties. Click to Enlarge.
Primate looking cautiously. Click to Enlarge.
Wildabeast. Click to Enlarge.
Impala. Click to Enlarge.
King of the Jungle. Click to Enlarge
"Petting Zoo." Click to Enlarge.
Click to Enlarge.
Kudu hunting. Click to Enlarge.
Wart hog. Click to Enlarge.
What is this? Click to Enlarge.
Before we left I was a little ambivilent
about the whole trip. Not that I didn't want to go, it was more
what the heck was I going to do while Tom was out hunting for ten
days. I had originally thought I might end up going out one or two
times with him. I had so much fun I went out every day except one
day (it rained and I am a fair weather observer). It was such a
hoot to start the day out and wonder what you would see that day.
We found out that the monkeys,warthogs, and ostriches were the
lookouts for all the animals if something strange approached. The
monkeys and baboons have one of their members sit in the tops of the
trees as a lookout. The jungle was so noisy with the birds, monkeys
and baboons all making noise. Each day we got up at 5:30am, ate
breakfast and were on the road at 6:30am. Each day it was
Tom, Wendy, Braun,(our professional
hunter - each foreign hunter is required to have one with them at
all times when they hunt) and Aboba (our tracker and skinner).
We would go out and hunt, come back for
lunch at noon, take a nap, head back out at 3pm and return at
sunset. We would stop at the skinning shed to see what everyone had
killed. The carcasses would be hanging and the heads would be on
the table. Cocktails were at 7pm with dinner at
8pm.
We stayed at a game ranch outside of
Alicedale, South Africa - it is affiliated with Cabellas.
Braun picked us up at
Port Elizabeth and took
us to our room. It consisted of 8 individual chalets and then 8
double chalets. When we were there we had hunters from Missouri,
Texas, and Michigan. There were also six hunters from
Switzerland.
The accomodations were quite nice for a hunting vacation. Our meals
were all included, all alcohol ( you can drink all the red wine you
want and it doesn't give you a headache!), they even did our laundry
everyday (Tom did lose some underwear and socks). The only
complaint Tom would have is that there were some pretty big spiders
crawling around (4-5 inches in diameter). Every night Tom would
throw toilet paper or shoes at some of them, he only killed one!
Good thing spiders don't bother me! Our first two days were hot
90's and those were the days the pump broke down and we had no
water. When we did have water it contained a lot of sulphur
and it smelled. After that it rained
and it was quite comfortable the rest of the trip - temp was in the
70's.
If you have read anything on
South Africa
lately there is getting to be a lot of unrest again. Two weeks
before we arrived there was a white leader (he was out there -
similar to our skinheads here) Anyway, he was murdered with an ax
by two black men. They have been having protests with the blacks
proclaiming "Kill the boers" or kill the white people. Anyway all
of the professional hunters were talking about it - there was a lot
of anxiety. South Africa has the
World Cup
in soccer there starting next month. It is the first time it has
been on the African continent. I naturally thought they would be
excited about it. I asked two different white people about it and
they both said soccer is for black people, white people play rugby.
I also had two different people say how they were both racists and
it didn't bother them. It is interesting considering the country is
10% white and 80% black and the white people have all the money and
the land.
The day before we left we went to a
private game preserve. This is where we saw the lions and zebras.
We also had the opportunity to go to a cheetah breeding ranch and we
got to pet the cheetah and hold the one month old lion cubs.
When talking to other people about our
trip, I am sometimes apprehensive about saying Tom killed nine
animals. However the town of Alicedale has unemployment at
40%. The place where we stayed employed
200 people. There are several game ranches and game preserves in
the area and they employ a lot of people. We used all of the meat
from the animals that were killed. Every night we ate wild meat and
we dropped the meat off at places in town that used it also. I know
the ranch also gave meat to the local orphanage and our tracker took
some with him when we dropped him off. It is a way for these people
to make a living. They said most of their business comes from the
states.
It was the best trip Tom and I have ever
been on and we are already trying to figure out when to go back.
The scenery was amazing and the people were fantastic. Wi
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