Let's get into a proper recap. I have my eye on a new camera lens and have the word count turned on now.
I recently returned from my first hunting adventure in Africa. This trip will also my last time hunting in Africa. Yes, I am boldly stating this declaration which has become a falsehood for so many prior adventurers.
My confidence in a one and done experience is not the result of my trip going sideways or being a bust. Not at all. I experienced everything which I anticipated and much, much more which I had no way to foresee.
I did plenty of shooting and a bit of hunting. My adrenaline surged to maximum volume a time or two. Day after day, I was waking up in a foreign place to wonderful new food experiences, amazing vistas, a myriad of intriguing plants and animals, and in-depth enlightening responses to my questions from a top-notch, patient staff.
After tipping over a Cape buffalo bull, even normally reserved me posed for a couple of photographs while reincarnating a wide-grinning, bearded Ernest Hemingway kneeling next to the vanquished beast which Robert Ruark described “looks at you like you owe him money.”
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Photograph: Stian behind me as I unleash my Hemingway grin while we move to a different blind.
The grin was not from having accomplished some impossible task, which was not the reality of the circumstances as I pulled the trigger, but rather was my enthusiasm bubbling over for having lived the moment I had dreamed of this for so many years. I had read stories. I had watch videos. Now I was really in the moment. I was finally in Africa and a couple of animals were now “in the salt.” I was not changing Africa though Africa was changing me.
I soaked up so much from Africa. At every turn there was something interesting, if not captivating. Was life-affirming. Best of all, like my Western hunting experiences, my favorite memories of Africa are typically moments which did not involve tipping over an animal.
