It was still dark out when I awoke this morning.  I got out of bed and looked at the clock on my cell phone:  it was only 5:30, but I knew that I'd never be able to get back to sleep.  Pulling on my shorts and a shirt, I opened the door of my chalet and stepped out onto the little porch.  The air was crisp, and the smell of Africa permeated my senses.  I looked at the stars of the Southern Hemisphere for the final time and hoped that somehow, some day I would return to Africa.

The gravel yard around my chalet made loud crunching sounds as I walked through it, and not wanting to disturb Mike's slumber in the next hut I stepped around to the grassy area that bordered the camp.  I looked up at the stars again, thinking about all I had seen and done, trying to grasp the reality that it was time to go home.  The hardest thing about Africa is leaving it, and I knew that I would spend many hours over the course of my lifetime thinking back to this trip. 

I had thought that I'd go to Africa just once, and others who had been here before had joked with me, telling me what an addiction this continent was, and that I'd be thinking about the second safari long before the first one was over.  They were right, all of them.  I'm coming back, I thought.  And after I come back, I'm coming back again.  This is not something that I can do just once.

I sighed, wondering how I would make another trip over here happen.  Lights from across the camp brought me out of my daydreams and back to the present day.  I saw that Edward had turned on the lights in the dining hall, indicating that breakfast was ready for those who wanted it.  I shivered once in the cool air, then made my way across camp to see what I could find to eat.

I filled a bowl with cereal, then made a couple of slices of toast.  Looking out the open door across the camp, I saw that it was still dark in Mike's chalet, so I sat down at the table and began to eat.  I was just finishing up my meal when Magda walked in and said good morning.  There was a tall man with her, and I stood to introduce myself.  This was Johan, she told me, one of the other professional hunters employed by Hannes.  He would be driving me back to the airport today.

"I'd like to stop somewhere and buy some gifts for the folks back home," I said as we shook hands.  "Can we build some time into our trip to accommodate that?  I packed last night, so I don't need much more time before I'm ready to leave."

Johan said that this would be no problem, and Magda quickly pointed out that there was a nice flea market near Pretoria that we could stop at on the way to Johannesburg.  She went on, saying that "We also have your skulls and hides ready for you to inspect once you've finished breakfast.  That sounded good to me, so I hurried my way through the rest of my breakfast, then walked outside where I found Magda relaxing on the front porch.  "I'm ready if you are," I told her.

Getting into Magda's little car, we drove out of camp and back across the road to Hannes's house.  We parked near the skinning area, and I saw my skulls all lined up neatly in a row for me to inspect.  I looked them over carefully, knowing that this would be the last time that I would see them for several months.  I took careful pictures of each so that when they arrived in America I would be able to compare my pictures with whatever was in my crate so that I could be sure I had gotten my animals.

Magda and I pose for a picture with my skulls.  Mike's kudu hangs in the background.

Once I was satisfied that my trophies were correctly tagged and ready to go, we drove back over to camp.  The hour that I had long dreaded had arrived:  it was time to go home.  Leaving Africa, I thought.  All these years, all these dreams, and it's time to go home.  This was going to be harder than I thought.  I missed Micki, and I wanted to be with her, but I found myself wishing I had booked ten days instead of eight.  Or twelve.  Eight days in Africa just isn't enough.

Johan was waiting for us back in camp.  He was driving a little pickup truck, and it didn't take long for us to load my gear up into the back and get on the road.  Our first stop, Johan told me, would be in Pretoria.  We'd stop at a flea market there so that I could shop for souvenirs, then head south to the airport in Johannesburg.  That sounded fine to me, and we were soon on our way. 

We drove for the last time down the dirt roads that had become so familiar to me, and I watched the places that I had come to love pass by and fade away.  We turned onto the pavement too quickly, and seeing a road sign pointing back to Rooibokkraal I asked Johan to stop and let me get a picture of it.  I wanted to remember the name of the little village that I had stayed in over the course of my first safari.  I lingered a few minutes, watching the long grass sway in the wind, staring down the dirt road a final time, etching the sight into my memory.

Looking back to Rooibokkraal

Out on the main road, Johan programmed our destination into his GPS, then told me he hadn't driven to Pretoria many times, so he needed directions.  The miles and hours passed by, and we soon left the country behind and entered civilization.  I marveled at the size of the city, and once saw what had to be a thousand acres of little shacks where the poor people lived.  The aluminum walls of the little huts glistened in the sun, and I wondered how the people who lived there could find their own homes in this maze of metal.

We left that part of Pretoria behind too, and on the outskirts of town, after two phone calls to Eric for clarification on direction we found the little flea market.  As we walked into the line of shops, I asked Johan to coach me on the prices of the trinkets.  Each shop was little more than a lean-to, and as we entered each one we were mobbed by "salesmen."

"Look boss," one said to me.  "Look at dis spoon, eet ees hand carved wood.  You buy."

I shook my head.  "That's not what I want."

"Ahhh, dee bowls, joo like dem boss?"

I actually did find a bowl I liked, decorated with a pair of hand painted zebras.  "Feefty rand," the black man said.

I looked at Johan out of the corner of my eye.  Surreptitiously he showed me two fingers indicating it was worth twenty rand at most.  "Fifty rand," I said in my best voice of outrage.  "You're crazy.  I'll give you ten." 

"No boss, I pay more den dat myself.  Joo must give me tirty rand."

"I'll give you twenty," I said, "or I'm moving on to the next shop."   He nodded, and the item quickly changed hands.  This scene was repeated several times as I bought gifts for family.  As the hour grew late, Johan pointed to his watch and said we needed to get on the road in order to get to Johannesburg in time for my plane.  I nodded, finalized the deal on a scrimshaw warthog tusk for my father-in-law, then followed Johan back to the truck.

The drive from Pretoria to Johannesburg took about two hours in very heavy traffic, but we made it to the airport with time to spare.  I thanked Johan for the ride, tipped him the last of my rand (aside from the bills I was saving for keepsakes), and bid him goodbye.  I found the ticket counter for South African Airlines and checked my luggage.  With a couple of hours to kill, the first order of business was turning in the mobile phone that I had rented when I had arrived in Africa.

I walked up and down the airport, but could not find a booth for MTN, the cell phone company, anywhere.  Disgusted, I stuck the phone in my bag and gave up.  I'd have to get in touch with the company from home and ship the phone back to them via the mail.   I did a little bit more souvenir shopping in the airport stores, and was on my way to get something to eat when I heard a voice call out "Hey, Accurate Reloading!"

I looked over my shoulder and saw Steve Huettner, a fellow member of the Accurate Reloading internet forum, and the same guy I had run into when I had arrived in Africa eight days ago.  "You want to get some lunch," he asked.  "We've got time before the plane leaves."

I was happy to have the company, and so we sat down in one of the restaurants in the airport and talked about our hunts over hamburgers and African beer.  We showed each other the pictures on our digital cameras, talked about our respective outfitters, and really just savored those last moments in Africa.  We shook hands after the meal, each with a little bit more shopping to do, then bid each other goodbye.

At my terminal, they were boarding little trams to take us to the plane, so I didn't have to wait at all.  I climbed aboard the bus and before I knew it I was in my seat on the airplane.  We'd have one refueling stop in Senegal before crossing the Atlantic, so I decided to stay awake for the first leg of the trip, then take a sleeping pill after we landed in Dakar.  I settled into my seat, then got out my journal and began to catch up on my writing. 

I don't remember much about the flight from Johannesburg to Senegal.  I was tired from so many days of hard hunting, late nights, and early mornings, and the first part of the trip was a blur.  I remember talking to a missionary in the seat beside me, and we shared our faith and fellowshipped a bit, and before long we were landing in Senegal.  As the plane touched down I took an Ambien, and the next thing I knew we were off the coast of America. 

There was a little bit of a mix-up with the luggage at Dulles.  The South African Airlines representative had told me that I would need to pick up my luggage in Dulles and manually check it back in for the plane to Charlotte, but my luggage didn't show up at the terminal.  I asked an attendant to check on it for me, and she said that it had been tagged for automatic transfer.  I told her that was fine, I'd just go on to my next flight, but she said no, since I was here, they'd have to retrieve it.

That didn't make sense to me, but after forty-five minutes of waiting both of my bags appeared in front of me.  I passed through Homeland Security pretty quickly.  The attendant checked my rifle and my Form 4457, and seeing that both matched he waved me on by.  I found the terminal for United Airlines and checked my luggage back in, then called Micki to tell her I'd be in Charlotte in a couple of hours. 

A reunion between a husband and a wife is a private thing, so we'll keep the curtains closed over this part of my journey.  We hugged at the bottom of the concourse stairs in Charlotte, kissed hello, then got my bags and headed back to our house.  The safari was over.