Every safari should have a day when time out is taken from the serious hunting and you just spend some time relaxing and enjoying being in Africa.  For this reason I highly recommend adding a day or two more than you think you need onto the end of your safari.  The daily rate is low enough on most safaris that the extra cost will be hardly noticed when you look at the big picture.  I had originally planned for my safari to be ten days, and looking back I probably should have stuck to that. 

I arose later than usual this morning knowing that the hard work was over and that it was time for us to just slow down and take one last long look at the country.  Today was a day for taking pictures and video.  After breakfast I sat down in the gazebo and waited for Zwei to show up.  As I set there, Mike Lenherd, the other hunter in camp, walked over and joined me.

We sat together enjoying the chill of the African morning, talking quietly of what we had seen and accomplished.  Mike and his professional hunter Eric were going after kudu today.  Big kudu.  Mike already had a 52 inch kudu at home, so today he wanted a real trophy.  Nothing under 56 inches.  As Eric drove up, I wished them good luck on their quest.

Zwei and Jacob showed up shortly after that.  Zwei had recharged my camera batteries for me overnight, and he handed them to me as he stepped out of the bakkie.  "Ready to go get some pictures?" he asked.

"I'm ready," I said.  "Where are we heading this morning?"

"Back to Renier's place," he told me.  I was glad to hear it; of all of the places we had hunted, this was probably my favorite spot.  While it was thick in many places, there were also plenty of open grasslands where we could get a good look at the wildlife.  "We'll try to better your impala," Zwei continued.  "There are some good ones over there on his property.  I must get some gas in the truck first, then we will be off."

"Sounds good.  Let's keep in mind that the pictures are more important than anything today.  Another impala would be great, but it's not absolutely necessary," I said.

Zwei indicated that he understood, so we loaded up the truck and drove down the road to the gas pumps at the Rooibokkraal store, a small shop that sold the bare essentials to the local villagers.  The store was housed in a large, squat building, but the inside was mostly empty space.  All of the goods were stored on shelves behind a mesh fence, and the proprietor had just a small slit to pass items back and forth through.  I had not thought much about the crime rate in the area that I was staying in, but seeing how secure this store was I realized that things must be worse than I had imagined. 

Zwei filled his truck with gas, the old pump grinding and gurgling as it struggled to deliver its load.  The liters ticked slowly off, and as we stood beside the truck I noticed how busy the store was becoming.  Villagers were coming in from all directions, some walking, some riding slowly along in mule-driven carts.  They gathered in small groups in the gravel parking lot, and the volume of their voices increased in proportion to their numbers. 

"They will spend the day here," Zwei said.  "They gossip and gamble, and they drink.  The store is not open every day, but when it is, it becomes a gathering place for them."

When Zwei finished paying for his gas, we drove back around behind the Limcroma lodge to the gate that opened onto Renier's property.  We spent the better part of the morning driving slowly around the ranch looking at animals and taking pictures whenever we could.  We came upon groups of impala at least twice, but none were anywhere near close to the size of the one that I had gotten on the first day of the safari.

"Let's go down the road to another property we have," Zwei finally said.  "There is a sable breeding program going on there, and you can get some good pictures of some of the bigger males on the ranch."

This sounded like a fine idea to me.  The sable ranch wasn't far from Renier's place, and although we waved to a group of men standing outside of the farm house, we didn't stop to talk to them as Jacob climbed down from the truck and opened the gate for us to drive out onto the property.  We found the sable immediately.  A large group of females eyed us warily but did not budge from their place in the shade as we drove past them.

We found the males a bit further into the bush.  Large and beautiful, I could see why these animals commanded such a high trophy fee.  "We hope to introduce them onto our ranches in the next couple of years," Zwei said.  "Right now we have to travel several hours to hunt sable.  It would be good for the clients to have some closer to the camp that they could hunt."

I agreed quietly, taking pictures and video of the animals as we slowly drove by.  A sable, I thought, would make a nice trophy.  But not on a second safari.  Maybe a third or even fourth, but there are other animals I'd rather hunt.  Even so, it was a very enjoyable experience, driving through the breeding area.  The animals were fairly used to traffic from their keepers, so we got a much better look at them than we would have if we had been seeing them in the wild.

As we moved past the sable, we got a quick view of a small group of female nyala, which I considered a nice bonus.  If there's a new number one animal on my must-have list of African game, it's the nyala.  I had hoped to see a male or two, but there were none in the area at the time.  I contented myself with a few pictures of the cows, then nodded agreement when Zwei asked if I was ready to move on.

"What would you like to do next?" Zwei asked.  "We will hunt impala again this evening, but is there anything you'd like to see between now and then?"

I thought about this for a few minutes.  "Let's go back over to Hannes's property.  I'd like to sit in one of the bow blinds for awhile and get some video from there.  I'd love to sit in one of the blinds that Ted Nugent hunted from on Spirit of the Wild."

"That sounds fine," said Zwei.  "I have a few things around camp to take care of.  I want to change the oil in the bakkie, and I need to do a little bit of paperwork.  I'll drop you off at one of the blinds for an hour or two, then come back and pick you up."

We stopped back at camp for a second to let me drop off my rifle, then drove across the road to Hannes's land.  We drove past several bow blinds before finally stopping at one.  "This is where Ted shot a warthog on his TV show," Zwei told me.  "You should be able to get some good pictures here."  He handed me a cooler full of drinks, then grabbed a folding chair out of the back of the truck and set it up in the blind for me.  "I'll be back at around 2:00pm," he said as he stepped back into the truck and drove off. 

I watched him drive away, then walked around behind the blind.  There were steps going down to the door; the blind was built into the earth itself and was nice and cool inside.  I stepped in and looked around.  The walls were mostly bare, and the blind gave me the feeling of being in a prison cell.  There was a poster on one of the walls that showed pictures of some of the animals that I might see, and there were bamboo pegs to hang my backpack from.  I got settled into the seat and opened the cooler to get a drink.

I appreciated the attention to detail as I reached in and grabbed an orange soda out of the cooler.  Zwei had packed it with water, orange drinks, Sprite, and even a couple of Castle Lights:  the exact drinks that I had favored during our daily hunts.  I made a mental note to thank him for the consideration, then settled in to watch for some animals to show up.

Although the chair was quite comfortable to sit in, the windows in the blind were at chest level, so I had to stand up to actually see anything.  I was glad that I had been rifle hunting on this trip; although it made a perfect bow blind, I would have gone crazy staring at those walls for any length of time.

The first group of animals to show up was a herd of female waterbuck.  They walked slowly into view from the left, stopping to feed about 20 yards away from the blind.  Once in awhile one of them would catch sight of me through the window of the blind and would snort, then step back a few feet, only to return to feed with the rest of the herd within a few minutes.  They stayed around the entire time I was in the blind.

Before long, a herd of blue wildebeest came in.  They were a bit more wary then the waterbucks, and only stayed in the area for a few minutes.  I did get some good pictures of them before they left, and even a little bit of video.  The only other animals to show up were a family of warthogs.  A little baby warthog came up and tried to get into a tub that was full of oats, but it took everything he had to get over the rim of the tub.  He finally made it, and I couldn't help but laugh at his efforts.  He was a funny little guy, and I got lots of pictures of him and his family.

For the next hour or so I watched the waterbucks, the warthogs, and the wildebeest, thinking to myself that Ok, I've seen all of the "w" animals.  Now, where are the impala?  The impala never showed, and a little after three o'clock Zwei showed up in his clean, shining bakkie.  Jacob was riding with him, and Zwei asked me about the animals I had seen.  He was surprised to hear that I had seen no impala.  "Well," he said, "since you didn't see one here, let's go hunt them again."

I was agreeable, and I saw that Zwei had picked up my rifle from camp and brought it along for the afternoon hunt.  With Jacob driving us, we spent the next few hours driving around Hannes's land, and although we saw no impalas worth shooting, there's an experience I've just got to tell you about.  We were riding along the trail with the Limpopo river on our right.  The trail sat on top of a cliff high above the river, and once or twice I shivered, thinking about how easy it would be for the soft sand to give way and the truck fall to the river.

The sand held, of course, and as we drove past one particularly beautiful bend in the river I nudged Zwei and pointed down to the water.  "Is that what I think it is?"  I asked.  "Hippos?" 

"Yes," Zwei responded.  "There are twelve of them.  They love this stretch of river.  We'll get as close to them as we can."  Jacob parked us behind a clump of bushes, hiding the truck from the group of hippos basking in the river.  We climbed out of the truck and crept quietly along the river bank, getting to within 40 yards of the huge water beasts.  We were still high on the cliff, and the only way they could get to us was to run along a switchback, which would give us time to get back to the truck if they showed any sign of aggression.

I took pictures and videos of the hippos, and saw Zwei doing the same.  At one point it occurred to Zwei to tell me that the far side of the river was Botswana, and I couldn't help but think about the fact that somewhere just a few hundred miles north of me Harry Selby was probably sitting somewhere thinking about what he would be having for supper that night.  Selby was the professional hunter who took Robert Ruark out on his safari almost sixty years ago.  It surprises me sometimes to think that Mr. Selby is still with us, but you have to remember that he was in his early twenties when he took Ruark on the safari that was discussed in detail in Horn of the Hunter.

Earlier this year Mr. Selby's daughter, Gail, had given me Harry's email address, and I had gotten in touch with him and sent him my first edition copy of Ruark's Hunter which he had graciously signed for me.  That first edition is now the number one prize of my entire book collection, and I wouldn't trade it for a dozen free safaris.  I never dreamed when I first read that book that I would one day communicate with Selby.

I broke from my thoughts about Ruark and Selby and focused my attention back on the hippos.  They were now aware of our presence on the bank above them and as one the group submerged, hiding from us.  Like apples in a barrel, they bobbed back up to the surface one at a time, blowing huge gusts of air from their lungs as they did.  Their snorts were loud and fierce, and the grunts and groans that they made were enough to send a chill through me.  I could imagine one of those big beasts charging us, and found myself wishing I had brought a larger rifle.  Just in case.

We watched them for a bit longer, then by silent agreement we all stood up, stretched, and made our way back to the truck.  "It's starting to get a bit late," Zwei said, "and we've seen and done a lot today.  Are you ready for a break?  I'd like to go wash the truck and take care of a few more things around camp."

"Sure," I said.  "It would probably be good for me to go ahead and get a little packing done."

With that, we drove on back to camp, dropping Jacob off at the gate.  I watched him jog back to the little village that he stayed in, then turned to Zwei and asked him what else we would do that evening.

"There is not much left for us to do," he said.  "After I wash the truck I will come get you and we will green score your trophies.  We'll confirm all of your skins, making sure that they are each tagged properly for processing."

We parted, and I walked slowly back to my chalet, savoring my last moments in Africa.  There were still a few hours of daylight ahead of us, but the sun was starting to ride lower in the sky, and the heat of the afternoon was dissipating.  I propped open the doors of my chalet and began to pack up my gear.  As I did this I found myself laughing at how much stuff I had brought that I had not used.  Many of the shirts and pants in my closet had gone unworn.  I had brought a half dozen pairs of shorts and had probably worn two of them over the course of the week.  The in-camp laundry service was so efficient that I could have gotten by on two pairs of pants, two shirts, and maybe three pairs of socks.

I got just about everything packed up in a relatively short time.  The only things left to pack were those items that I would need tonight and tomorrow morning before we left camp.  That being done, I strolled over to the lodge to grab a bottle of water, then went over and sat down in the gazebo to relax for awhile.  Presently Zwei drove up, his truck now clean and glistening in the fading sunlight. 

"I have lost my cell phone," he said to me.  "It may be at the store we stopped at earlier today.  I'm going back over there to look; want to ride along?"

"Sure," I answered, having nothing else to do.

"That Jacob," Zwei told me as we drove down the road to the store.  "I can't find him either.  If he has gone off and gotten drunk, he will not drive for me again."

It was just a mile or so from the camp to the store, and as we pulled in the lot I saw how the store indeed was a gathering place for the villagers, as Zwei had mentioned this morning.  Hundreds of the local village dwellers filled the parking lot.  They were huddled together in small groups, and the reek of alcohol was strong in the air.  Many of them were drinking Leopard Beer from paper cartons, and I saw a few whiskey bottles being passed around.

I sat in the truck while Zwei went in to look for his phone.  As I sat there, a red-eyed Jacob came up and peered in the window at me.  "Zwei is looking for you," I told him.

"He is looking for me," Jacob repeated.  It was almost a question.  He was very very drunk.  "I am right here," he continued. 

"I see that," I said.  "He'll be back in just a minute."

As Jacob muttered something unintelligible, a crowd of villagers flowed past the truck, parting like a river as they surrounded it and moved away.  Jacob was swept away with them.  The last glimpse of him that I got was of his olive-drab toboggan moving through the swaying throng.  I never saw him again.

Zwei soon emerged from the store.  I related what had happened, and he shook his head in disgust.  "He does this every time," Zwei said.  "He is finished."  I wasn't sure if he was serious or not, but I kept my thoughts to myself as we drove back to camp. 

"Let's go to the skinning area now and green score your trophies," said Zwei.  "I will instruct the local taxidermist to do a final score before he ships them to you, but at least we can get a rough idea of how they will come out.  I am sure some of them will make the record books."

Parking the truck behind Hannes's house, we gathered my skulls together in a pile.  Zwei stepped away for a moment, returning with a measuring tape and a piece of notebook paper.  Starting with the kudu, he ran the tape carefully around the horns of each animal, writing down the measurements and occasionally nodding approval at the results.

My animals were all very symmetrical, with the kudu scoring 53.5" on one side and 54" on the other.  The impala was a beautiful 24" per horn, with bases that were six inches in circumference each.  Zwei commented on that one, saying that a sixty inch impala was indeed something to be proud of.  The blesbok scored an even 17" on each side, well above the average of fourteen inches for that species.  The warthog came in at an astounding 13.5" per side.  Zwei was right.  This was the warthog of a lifetime.

Handing me the piece of notebook paper Zwei said, "Now let's go over to the salt and check your hides.  I want to make sure that each is tagged properly."

I was impressed with the care that he was taking to ensure that everything was in order.  It's definitely part of the safari company's job to ensure that the right trophies make it home to the hunter, but it was really great to be present to see how much effort Limcroma put into this portion of the process.

We walked across the yard to what looked like a large carport.  The concrete floor was covered in eight inches of salt, and animal hides were scattered throughout.  My Coppersmith tags were bright yellow and easy to find, and we checked each one of them to ensure that they were properly marked.  Zwei found two that were incorrect, and he made copious notes in a little pad that he was carrying.  One hide was labeled as a skull, and the other was marked "impala" when it was clearly a blesbok.  "This is unacceptable," Zwei commented to himself, correcting the tags.

He stood, stretching his back and shaking his head.  "Alfred," he yelled across the compound.  "Alfred, kom hier!". 

Alfred, the head skinner, came jogging up to us.  "Ja boss, wat doen u soek?"  What do you want.

A slightly heated conversation in Afrikaans followed, with Zwei gesturing at the skins and the corrections he had made to the tags.  Alfred ducked his head, accepting the scolding and apologizing for the mistakes.  When they were finished, I thanked him for his work, at the same time showing no tolerance of the errors that he had made. 

"Well, that is that," said Zwei.  "Shall we head across the street for dinner?  I believe Magda will want to go over some paperwork with you too."

"Sure," I replied.  "It's been a heck of a day.  Let's wrap it up and go relax."

Freshly showered, I soon found myself seated at the bar inside the lodge with Zwei and Magda.  Magda had a ledger with her, and together we poured over the notes that she had made.  She showed me the trophy fees that I had been quoted for each animal, and I concurred that these were the prices that Hannes and I had agreed on a year and a half ago when I had booked the safari.  In Africa, unless you are hunting through a package deal you pay not only a daily rate for the services of the safari company, but also a set price for each animal that you wound or kill.  This is not the same thing as looking at an animal in a pen and saying "I want that one."  It is simply the price that the outfitter puts on each species and is above and beyond the daily rates.  This trophy fee is what ensures that conservation works, with a portion of the proceeds going to the landowner, the African government, and the safari company.

"Now," said Magda.  "We must decide what you want done with each skin and skull."

"Ok," I said.  "Let's get the zebra rug done here in Africa.  Have them put a black felt backing on it just like the one in the dining area."

"That's a good choice," she said.  "Our taxidermist does wonderful rugs.  What about the capes and backskins of the other animals?  Do you want them done here as well?"

"Have them finish the backskins for me," I said, "but only rough-tan the capes.  I would rather have those done back in America where I can keep an eye on them if necessary."

Magda made the appropriate notes in her ledger, then showed them to me for my approval.  Seeing that everything was in order, I signed the paperwork.  With that out of the way, we were free to relax for the rest of the evening.  The smells of another wonderful supper were drifting out from the kitchen, and the fire was already roaring in the pit outside the lodge.

As we started to walk outside to sit by the fire, Magda's cell phone rang.  It was Eric, the professional hunter who had gone out with Mike this morning after kudu.  A brief conversation in Afrikaans followed, then Magda said to us, "We must go across the street to see the kudu that Mike and Eric got."  We piled into her car, making the short drive from the camp to the skinning area. 

What awaited us there was an incredible sight.  A kudu, the likes of which I may never see again, hung from the skinning hoist.  "He will go sixty inches," Eric boomed.  "Alfred, bring me the tape."  Mike was grinning with excitement, and his smile widened as Eric confirmed the measurements.  Sixty inches on one side and 59 on the other, this was a once in a lifetime kudu.  The long horns were beautifully symmetrical and stretched halfway down the length of the animal's body.  This really was the most beautiful kudu I had ever seen.

We took pictures and congratulated Mike before driving back across the road to camp to get ready for supper.  We sat around the fire for a half hour, waiting for Eric and Mike to rejoin us, and when they arrived we walked together to the kitchen to find a wonderfully delicious kudu stroganoff waiting for us.  Paired with another red African wine, the meal was a perfect conclusion to my safari. 

Zwei excused himself as we finished the meal, saying that he had to go home to prepare for his next client.  I stood and shook hands with him, telling him how much of a pleasure it was to hunt with him.  I thanked him for his hard work and told him that I hoped he made it to America in the near future to get the elk that he was dreaming of. 

After he was gone, I turned to Eric and asked him for his help on the tips that I would be giving to Zwei and to the camp staff.  We discussed the issue in depth, with Eric asking me questions about how pleased I was with the work of the staff.  Everyone had been wonderful, I told him, and I was prepared to leave them a nice tip.  "Three hundred dollars would be appropriate," he told me.  "Based on your level of satisfaction, this would be plenty for everyone involved with the exception of Zwei.  For him, you say he has worked very hard for you and you are happy with the results.  A good tip would be ten percent of the daily rate.  A better tip would be fifteen percent."

I had not brought that much cash with me.  Taking out my wallet, I handed Eric enough Rands to cover the staff tip.  "Do you think," I asked, "it would be acceptable for me to send a check for Zwei's tip once I get back home?  I also need to pay for the blesbok that I took, so I would include his tip with that check."

"That is perfectly fine," answered Eric.  "I will tell Zwei that you will be sending him a tip."

I thanked him for his help, then said good night, being ready to go get some rest.  Back in my chalet, I laid awake for quite some time listening to the jackals in the bush outside of camp.  It was my last night in Africa, and I wanted to embed those sounds into my memory.

Sometimes, on a dark evening with the stars shining high above me as I stand out on my back deck in South Carolina, I listen carefully and I can still hear those jackals, and I am glad for them.