Preface:  This is an excerpt from the journal I kept on my first African safari.  This safari was booked as a once in a lifetime safari to Botswana’s Okavango Delta, where I planned to hunt Cape Buffalo and plains game.  My husband had a heart attack just months before we were to depart, but was recovering quite well.  However, his doctor wouldn’t allow him to travel.  So I invited his sister, my former college roommate, who had never hunted before, to accompany me on this momentous trip.   Picture this, two women, first time traveling to Africa, one has never hunted before, and both turning 50 while on safari in Africa.  This is my account of day three of our fourteen day safari.

THURSDAY, AUGUST 8, 1996—Okavango Delta

Our wake up tea, decaf and biscuits were served to our tent at 5:30 AM.  We left camp about 6:40 AM to resume our Buffalo stalk from yesterday morning  We spent 3 ½ hours of intense sneaking through the bushland of thorns, scrub brush, dry leaves and sand.  We passed one snake (Yellow bellied sand snake—venomous) at which Baeti threw a rock to deter it from crossing our path.  Just as yesterday, the buffalo played the wind and led us in small circles through the brush, always requiring us to be deft with each step to maintain total silence.  Just before we finally actually caught sight of the buffalo, at not more than 30 yards through the brush, Ronnie began struggling to muffle a cough.  He even tried to drink water, but after each attempt to squelch his reflexes, he choked more.  His face was contorted and red. He had warned Mary Jane and me so much about noise creating a potential charge, that the intenseness of the situation suddenly became incongruently comical and unavoidably, hysterically funny to me.  The more I tried not to laugh, the more I wanted to.  In an attempt to avoid looking directly at Ronnie, I turned around to face Mary Jane.  The affect was contagious and she began a struggle to muffle a giggle too.  Five minutes later, the buffalo broke from cover and the hunt ended for the morning.  We all laughed whole-heartedly.

We hiked back to the Landcruiser and relocated for lunch.  After lunch, we drove back through the area where we had last seen the buffalo, checking tracks and clues in the thick brush.  It was finally decided by Baeti that these buffalo had continued to run and we shouldn’t push them any longer today.  So we headed in the direction of camp and passed giraffes, hundreds of zebra, baboons, and even a cheetah.  We saw ostrich and all the other large birds, cranes, vultures, dove, as well as the ever present “Go-Away” birds which signal our presence to everyone and everything!

We located a herd of Impala, and I decided to use Sherry, my .308, (I name all my rifles) as that is the only rifle we hadn’t taken any game with.   My standing shot from the shooting sticks was an inch left but hit solidly in the shoulder, and although we followed a sizable blood trail for nearly an hour, we couldn’t find the mortally wounded Impala.  I felt horrible!!   This is the down side to hunting for me. The shot was probably 175 yards.  Only Ronnie and I had left the vehicle for the shot, but then we all tracked.  Patrick and I separated from the others and located far ahead of where we thought the Impala could have run.  The others tried to drive the wounded Impala out of the brush in our direction.  But nothing!  We returned to the Landcruiser and traveled on.  M.J. suggests hunting was like horseback riding, I should try again ASAP.  And, I appreciated the encouragement immensely.  Ronnie was also supportive, but most importantly, the bushmen did not want to return to camp without meat. 

We did a stalk on 2 Tsessebe bulls, but neither was a worthy trophy.  Then as we neared “Elephant Alley” (where we seemed to get charged by elephants each time we passed en route back to camp), Ronnie spotted 5 Impala rams amongst the waist high grass surrounded by thick palm islands and trees.  He told me “Come on.”  I was kind of hoping the Impala would run off so I wouldn’t have to test myself again so soon.  But my shot was successful (75 yds—one heart/lung shot with my .308).  I heard the “thud” and went off to retrieve the ram that had made his dying leap, along with his companions, into thick palms.  Ronnie headed around behind the palm thickets and M.J. and I followed the 3 bushmen directly on the blood trail in single file into the thickets along the course the Impala had jumped.  Suddenly Shorty stopped and turned back looking at M.J. and me while pointing ahead, saying “thlou”, a Setswana word that sounds like “toe”.  He repeated this very seriously two more times so we knew it meant something very important.   Mary Jane was ahead of me and she turned around gesturing with a body language question of shrugged shoulders.  I looked at her and whispered, “I wonder what “toe” means.”  Then in loud, perfect English and with much conviction and strength in his voice Shorty said, “Elephant!”  M.J. and I looked up above the palm tops and saw a huge elephant with ears fanned out looking down at us.  Trying to exercise the rules we had been taught, I was the farthest away I proceeded to step back and make a slow, quiet retreat followed by M.J.   However, the three bushmen had survival rules of their own and began to full out run.  As M.J. was being passed by the bushman she shouted to me, “Run, Darin, run, before we were trampled by the bushmen and the elephant.”  We covered the distance back to the Landcruiser in large bounds.  Ronnie returned from the other side of the thickets.  He had heard all the commotion and all of our laughing and thought we had simply found the Impala.  Mary Jane and I weren’t so sure that the bushmen didn’t make more out of this situation than it really was. But nevertheless, we all appreciated the comedy of our retreat.  We weren’t so sure that they hadn’t done it just to scare us, but in a teasing light hearted way!  We regained our composure. Patrick spotted the heart-shot Impala near where we had been running.  The photos were taken.  The self-reprehension I had felt earlier was gone. 

Next, our Landcruiser ride to where we left our little boat, on to camp, hors d’oeuvres, showers, and dinner.  The main course was M.J.’s Lechwe which she shot yesterday (her first ever hunting effort).  It was delicious and served with soup, potatoes, and squash.  After dinner, around the campfire Ronnie broke the news to us that he would have to leave in the morning to take care of business at their new Chobe camps.  This was an unscheduled but mandatory walk-through with government personnel as a prelude to the re-opening of elephant hunting in Botswana after many, many years of closure.  Terry Palmer would be taking over in Ronnie’s place beginning tomorrow and on Saturday Ronnie’s  father and mother, Ian and Elvira McFarland (both considered icons in my “Gunsite” shooting world and legends in African hunting in general), would also join us.  So although we were disappointed to lose Ronnie, he was leaving us in competent hands, and he assured us he would rejoin us ASAP.  Maybe in 4-5 days.  (He never did, however.)  Off to our tent.  We took our Larium tablets for Malaria.  Another day’s end in paradise.

Epilogue:  The following year, 1997, my husband and I returned to Kubu Camp and hunted with the same staff.   En route hunting one day while I sat in the back of the Landcruiser, I recognized the spot where our “toe” incident had occurred.  Shorty, the very smiling bushman who could not speak English, looked at me, pointed and said “toe”!!!!!  He had fondly remembered our fun too.