JAMES THORNE

Nov 11, 2006

Hello Johan and everyone at Bahati Hunting Safaris!

I just wanted to express again how much I enjoyed my adventure with you all with a letter describing my experiences that others might glean something out of for their own use. 

First of all, the arrangements made for our trip by Bahati Hunting Safaris were no less than exceptional!  Before we left the States, we were provided clear, concise packing lists, instructions and directions for everything we needed to take with us.  For the critical items, Johan made sure, to the best of his ability, that we weren’t going to arrive with to little or to much.  Especially for the “first-timers” to the Dark Continent (Cousin’s Nick, Craig, Gary and myself,) with all of the potential in these trying times, that everything flowed smoothly and without a hitch, definitely set the “tone” of the trip. I am a Project Planner by trade, and so by nature, live by Murphy’s Law (What can go wrong, will go wrong; Hope for the best, expect the worst; etc.)  So, my expectations were to have long lay-overs in airports, hotels, the “middle of no-where”, etc. and it just, plain, never happened.  From the time we passed through the security gate in Johannesburg, until we went back through it to leave, we were chaperoned and taken care of without incident.  It made me very relaxed and able to enjoy the trip to the fullest.  The hotel we stayed at in Pretoria for our first night, also set the tone for the trip.  It was first class and very African with lots of taxidermy mounts inside and live African game (including lions and a cheetah) on the grounds outside.  There was an excellent restaurant in the hotel and we all had a great time.  I would highly recommend the hotel to future clients as a great “jump-off” point to their trips.

Both the aircraft and hunting vehicles provided by Bahati Adventures were first class for our trip.  The aircraft pilots (one of which was Johan,) were very safe and smooth.  I actually caught a few cat-naps on the legs of my flights and I am not normally very comfortable in small planes.  Going through Customs in Beira and Polokwane was relatively un-eventful (thanks to Johan’s efforts,) and turned out to be just another part of the adventure.  We all had drinks in the Beira traveler’s lounge even though we had a difficult time communicating with the bartender.  She seemed to give a significantly different exchange rate to each of us which we all got a chuckle out of.  I think Mike was the only one that came up on the “short end of the stick,” but even that wasn’t very much.

Our first night in camp, we were honored with getting to watch the “blessing of the hunt” by the local tribal chieftain.  He chanted a kind of “sing-song” set of verses and poured soda pop over one or two of the PH’s rifles.  At the end of every phrase of the chief’s chant, the attendee’s (made up of our trackers and camp help(?),) would say, “Bo-Pah!”  From that time forward, we all said “Bo-Pah” for any occasion that seemed to warrant a “blessing” or some kind of excited exclamation.  For us, a new way of expressing the flavor of Africa!

The camps where we stayed, in both Mozambique and the Limpopo, South Africa, were excellent.  The housing was very adequate, even in bad weather.  Showers in the evening were always hot and the camp staff would see to our every need.  The food in camp was very good.  I found the alternating meals between pudding for dessert or soup for appetizer humorous.  Getting to enjoy the main entrée’s of wild game throughout our trip was one of the things I tell almost everyone about.  It wasn’t always game that one of our party shot, but because we always eat the game we shoot in the States, it was important to us to try out the African varieties.  While on our trip, we got to try Sable, Lichtenstein Hartebeest, Reedbuck, Bushpig, Warthog, Kudu, Steenbuck, and Cape Buffalo.  Of these, I liked the Hartebeest, Reedbuck, Bushpig and Warthog the best.  The meals were prepared in a variety of ways, so every meal was also a new adventure.  There was a high level of importance maintained on cleanliness throughout the camp, especially on the eating/drinking dishes and flatware.  Even the enclosure around the fire pit was swept clean every day of sticks and leaves.  The cabins were cleaned, including making beds and folding clothes, every day. 

Johan and the Professional Hunters (Marius, Gary, Louis, Theron and Koert) are the epitome of what I hoped for (not expected,) of the staff for an African Big Game hunt.  Because our party had an uneven number of hunters and the hunt had been planned for 3 PH’s to share our party (or vice-versa?), I had the pleasure of hunting with everyone.  There were a few idiosyncrasies and mannerisms that differentiated the PH’s, but to a fault, they knew their business as only a true professional can.  Their knowledge of the game and habitat, their familiarity with their trackers, their overall experience and people skills allowed us to become so confident in them that we only waited for their consent to squeeze the trigger.  We were shown and offered many more trophy level game animals than we had ever considered before arriving.  A frequent joke among us told by Cousin Craig was PH Gary pointing out a new animal species to Cousin Gary and while in mid-sentence asking “what he thought?” or “had he considered?”, and Craig would say “Bang”, as Cousin Gary’s response.  Cousin Gary’s retort back was, “I like to shoot stuff!”  Another skill that they have acquired that was invaluable to us is photography.  Without their help, many of the pictures either would have been useless, or wouldn’t have been taken at all.  My buffalo hunt was the most exciting hunt I’ve ever been on.  Part of it was, of course, the reputation of Cape Buffalo from all the reading that I’ve done, but the actual experience of it with wading through waist high muck, sneaking through the tall grass, seeing them by the egrets on their back, peering through the grass trying to judge which one to take and finally after my shot, for the herd of 60+ head to line up abreast facing us and marching towards us with blood in their eye; is un-matched in my experience.  That adrenalin rush was awesome!  Through all that, my PH Marius was cool and collected, which made us able to better savor the experience.

Some of the interesting things that we did, saw, heard, etc. were:  drinking water from a vine, seeing and having identified for us the non-game birds, trees, snakes and insects (Nephew Sean especially liked them,) kicking over a termite mound, swinging from a vine like Tarzan, helping to burn the sour grass “veldt”, upland bird hunting (francolin grouse, helmeted guinea’s, etc.), riding on the Argo (8 wheeled, all terrain, amphibious vehicles) through the papyrus swamps, visiting the local peoples, etc.  The various terrains that we hunted in varied from swamps to plains to jungle to river delta to mountain foot-hills and as such, were exposed to the variety of game animals in those areas.