When you’re leaving Africa after your first safari, the standard line is that you’ll be trying to figure out how to return before you get home. My first safari was in 2005. I hunted the Limpopo Province with Hennie Badenhorst, and to a hillbilly from the mountains of West Virginia the experience was overwhelming. I was working on my plan to return before I left. I was back again the next year, and the next year, and I was looking for something every time. I just wasn’t exactly sure what it was. All I ever brought home with me were memories and the red dirt in my boots.
It wasn’t until 2014 that I realized what I was looking for. That year my wife went on safari with me, and the day she left, my then 14 year old son arrived. On the plane ride back from that safari it hit me. What I’d been looking for, was to once again experience that first time in Africa. This of course is impossible. Only once will you experience the sounds, sights, and smells of Africa, for the first time.
There’s a certain song that the wild of Africa plays. It stars in the morning with the coo of the dove. It’s soothing, but as the day progresses it’s replaced by the growl of the hornbill and the constant reminder from the go-away-bird that you do not belong there. The sights are also mind bending, with animals of vibrant colors and snakes so venomous it seems just looking at them will kill you. And the smells…It’s hard to explain how the air smells cleaner or how something as simple as toast smells different in Africa. Africa has its own aroma, everything from the dirt to the acacia combines into a bouquet that’s distinctly different from anywhere else on earth. Hemingway even said the kudu smelled, “sweet and lovely like the breath of cattle and the odor of thyme after a rain.” All of this, you can only hear, see, and smell, for the first time, only one time.
I believe that this is what keeps us going back to Africa and progressively trying new things and new areas, like Mozambique and dangerous game hunting. We’re looking to find a reproduction of that first fix. What I’ve learned is that that for me, recreating that first African high is impossible. The closest I’ve come is through introducing a loved one or friends to Africa, for their first time. Sitting at the fire ring listening to my wife describe the eland, the giraffe, and the sable. Seeing the wonder on my young son’s face as he placed his hand deep into the fur of his first kudu. Through them, I got to feel Africa – like it was the first time – again.
In 2015 I arranged for a man and his daughter to hunt with me. He’s since been back with his wife and his other daughter. Then there was the Scout Rifle Safari, where I made friends with Bill, Carrie, Ray, and Big Jim and Young James, who were all first timers. We’ve all been on safari together since. In 2019 there were others, but the Hong Kong Flu interrupted my efforts until 2023.
Last year I got to see Africa through the eyes of my oldest daughter, who with the help of good friends, let her begin her thirst and quest for a repeat of her first time. I watched her touch her gemsbok, her wildebeest, and what she craved most, her zebra. And I saw the reflection of the mesmerizing African sunset, and more stars than she thought the heavens could hold, in her eyes. It was like I was doing it all again for the first time. And in some ways, better.
In just a few weeks I’ll leave for Africa again and I’ll be there for 38 days. Though I doubt anything on this safari will compare to seeing the tears in my daughters eyes when she boarded the plane to come home and leave me in Africa. (Like a python Africa had wrapped itself around her soul, imbedding that red dirt in her forever.) This year I will introduce eight people to a place that will most likely change their lives. And my wife will join me for her second safari, as we celebrate our 30th anniversary. It’s been 10 years since we were in Africa together.
With all of those folks, I’ll be there at the fire ring every night, trying to hear, trying to see, and trying to get a whiff of that first time in Africa again. I’ll also see some dear friends that I’ve shared adventures with, in one of the few places other than my home that I think of every - single - day.
It's a bit selfish, for sure, somewhat like a crack addict convincing a friend to get high with them. I guess you could say it is also fiendish and almost cruel to start another down a road to addiction – an addiction that they may never be able to satisfy. That is until they learn that while they can never experience Africa like it was their first time, again, they can learn – hopefully as I have – that they can do it indirectly by introducing others to that red dirt they may very well come to look at as cold dust.
And that’s exactly what it is, it's that damned, wild, and merciless red dirt. Months after returning home you’ll find it in your boots, on your hat, your gear, and in places where you thought dirt could never go. Like in your heart.
Gunwriter Chronicles (2024 Episode 5)
Africa, Wilson Combat, and Suppressors.