Alright here it goes there is a lot to tell:
Leaving the US driving to the airport I actually see the Air Ethiopian Plane coming into Dulles, which I thought was pretty cool. The Air Ethiopian staff were great and checking the rifle was not a problem. Get on the plan was super dreading the 13 hour flight in economy only to find out the seat next to me was open so I had plenty of room after all! Hooray. A transfer in Ethiopia and I was in Harare. This is where the first mishap happen. I was there, my luggage was there but my rifle was not. After getting all of the paperwork filled out and Zim authorities holding my ammo till my rifle arrived I was at the Jessamy guest house where the people could not have been friendly. Other then no gun, so far so gun. Spoke with my PH and a plan was in place, we would wait to see if my rifle arrived tomorrow or I could borrow a gun from him. The next morning and after calling everyone and anyone that would talk to me at Harare and Ethiopian Airlines, come to find out my rifle never left Dulles and I am convinced an Anti works in their baggage department as this is the second time in as many trips that this has happened. My PH picks me up and off we go to Harare airport where I was assured that my rifle should be there. I get there and go through a pretty confusing process to get to the lost baggage area and as I round a corner there is rifle on the carousel.
Grab my gun and off to customs, which was another experience, there was a guy trying to bring 28 computers in pieces through, another guy bringing clothes, and a Chinese man who was having it out with 3 workers on what he is allowed to bring. Either way an hour later I was up and I was the first one of the group to make it through. Pay the storage fee for my ammo and we are off to camp. The trip to camp was uneventful and the PH and myself told hunting stories and party stories and discussed the upcoming hunt. Either way I was really pumped up and after dinner was ready for sleep knowing 5:15 was going to come pretty early.
Day 1
5:15 came and I was up and ready, after putting on skin so soft sunscreen and bug lotion, loading the cull belt and grabbing the gun we on the bakkie and off in search of elephant. The plan was to go to some of the inter villages and see if elephants had harassed them during the night. This is two birds with one stone approach as it keeps the community happy and I might get my elephant. About 6:15 to 6:30 we get tracks in the road, and they are fresh. Load up and off we go. And we start walking. We are moving at a pretty good speed because it is pretty open. We slow down as we come to the first ridge as the tracks were pretty fresh, but soon it is clear that they are moving pretty much single file through the open area as they have some place they want to go. We cover this ground pretty quickly, and the thing I learned is elephants love going up and down hills. I mean they love it, up and then down and up and then down. This went on for about 2 hours, it is hard to gain ground on them when they are moving like that but I was told we were definitely gaining ground. Finally we start to come to thick stuff, down in the valley, I am really excited as we slow down, looking I am sure they are there in the thick stuff. but nope just passing through. We go through a river bed and this seems even thicker, and we are starting to see buffalo sign as well. I am on full sensory overload and this pretty much just shows that I am rookie, everyone is pretty calm and moving at a pretty good pace, hit and open spot and we are moving. Then there is some real thick stuff. the elephant droppings are "hot" I am told and we slow way down in the thick stuff, testing the wind before each step. I am having to focus on every step to make sure I don't break a branch and to be as quietly a possible. We are almost crawling through this stuff because it is so thick. Suddenly the tracker looks up and points and says we are close. The PH looks and says don't move, he is investigating and we have just crawled right into the herd with a young male not 10 yards away, all I can see is a foot. Apparently there are two females there that we can see but no tuskless. We are sitting completely still and without notice the first elephants starts to crash through the brush and this cause the rest of the herd to start to move. At 10 yards when that herd starts to move, you start to freak out, I mean branches are breaking and I am standing there wide eyed thinking the brush is going to erupt and we have no where to run. However, they ran the other way. One funny point is a Sand Grouse came running by during the commotion as I guess he decided he didn't want anything to do with elephant either. We took a quick break and laugh about how close we were it was 11:15 and we had covered about 18 to 20km so far.
Out of the brush and off to cut the track. We had a good idea where they went as one had trumpeted in the background. We soon cut the track and off we went, through a riverbed and into some grass, we had barely gone a mile and 1/2 and the game scout snaps his fingers and points, sure enough there they were, we try to get hidden and avoid the wind but they decided to rest in place that was down wind of their tracks, soon enough branches are breaking and they are gone. Head to the river to let them relax. Usually Elephants feed into the wind, however after our break they were walking with the wind behind them, I guess to alert them if we were on their track. Clever. So after an hour or this, we take a long break and the PH decided to get go the truck when we crossed a road. This would let things settle down some more. It was about 2 oclock and at 3:15 he was back with the truck a quick refuel and we were off and we were pressing to catch up. They had crossed over our tracks from early and were headed back into the wind. With the wind in our face we were almost running to catch them. They were going through river beds and through fields that were burnt. I love the burnt fields because even I could track and elephant though that. We were practical running because apparently the droppings were "hot" and they looked hot and I had no desire to touch them to find out. They led us through a thorn push patch were was not fun especially at the pace we were going. Finally that wonderful sound of branches breaking, it was 5:35 and we slowly started to play the wind to get in front and wait for them to pass. We had river bed to give us some protection but the whole thing came unraveled when 5 elephants had broke from the group and already crossed the river. With ears flapping they ran back to the rest, and then there was silence. A few stomach growls and we backed out, the sun setting and we were off the truck. The driver had pulled around so we were only 2 kms away. So even though we didn't get an elephant I don't think we could have hunted harder, we covered 35 to 40kms. It was a great first day, and I got to see my first wild elephant, but a how shower felt good, and I was ready for some sleep.
