Back in the saddle!
In looking this over, it seems like I had two Day 12's. Frankly, the first wasn't so good that I wanted to repeat it, but it looks like I did. So I'm starting today as Day 14, which is in sequence (for anyone who is counting the days . . .).
Day 14
This is moving day. We are up at 5 am, and the dismantling of our camp begins around 6. There will be nothing left on this site, and a camp will only return in March when the next mountain nyala hunt is planned.
The truck which will take us to the new camp heads down the mountain with a load, to meet a bigger truck which can't navigate the mountain roads. One trip down and back, and we load out own gear onto the truck. The other truck, which will take most of our camp staff, including our cook, has to make a few more round trips before it can go.
We head out around 9 am, and it's a long journey to the Danakil, over really terrible roads. This is one of the main highways to the port in Djibouti, but you would only know that because of the truck traffic on it. And these truck drivers are lunatics. In our journey, we came across no fewer than 6 accidents involving trucks, five of which are rollovers and look like total losses. Some still smoking. I can only imagine how many they have countrywide. The Danakil area of Ethiopia is in the Afar region, in the north-eastern part of the country, near the border with Somalia.
The Government of Canada says this about travel to the Danakil desert:
Global Affairs Canada advises against all travel to the area within 10 km of the borders with Eritrea and South Sudan, as well as to the Somali and Gambella regions and the Danakil Desert (emphasis in original).
Oh well.
We make one stop for lunch in a very hot (and I don 't mean trendy) 'restaurant' (if restaurants have birds flying around and goats tromping through). We get cokes and pasta for lunch, and Ficker gets injera with a mashed red bean paste of some sort. He lets me try it, and it's very tasty. I'll have to try to find a recipe once I get back home.
We finally arrive at our (very dark) camp around 7.30 pm.
The first thing we do is get the generator started, and wake up the guys who delivered the tents, etc. yesterday. We try to get our bearings, but it's tough in the dark. Finally, we get some lights, and find that very little has been done to get ready. Jacques is a force of nature, and gets tents allocated, bedding sorted out, and dinner made. With almost nothing in the way of pots and pans. Or food for that matter.
I try to find a bathroom, and find that we have outdoor showers and "short drop" toilets. Since the holes seem to have been dug earlier that day, I decide to christen the toilet. This is a bit more basic than I expected!
Shower (left
Part of the problem is that Ethiopia is, I think, the most expensive place to hunt in Africa, and one of the most expensive in the world. Yet they have rules that essentially make it impossible for most, if not all, operators to build any permanent camps anywhere, or bring in some of the basic amenities. Having said that, this camp will be occupied for less than a month a year, so it seems a bit unreasonable to demand what you might from a camp which sees more use. But the price/value equation is bugging me, and I go to bed with my nose a bit out of joint.
Day 15
It turns out that the night cools down a bit, and I even pull a blanket round myself at some point during the night. We have to test the gun again in the morning, so we decide to sleep in until 7. I wake up refreshed, and with a new outlook on things. As I walk around the camp, I find that our team arrived at about 1.30 in the morning, and some of them are sleeping under the stars. A mattress on the ground, and a blanket over. My tent had all of the window flaps open, so I could hear everything and smell everything.
It turns out that this is a lovely site for a camp, in a bend in one of the few year-round rivers (the Telalak) in this area. Lots of big trees all around - a rarity for this area. The whole camp has a real feel of "old Africa" about it, and I start to really enjoy the surroundings. Breakfast is served in our open dining area, and the staff is, as usual, attentive and determined to please. The only difference, I think, between this camp and one a hunter might have set up 100 years ago is that ours arrived on trucks, rather than porters.
Me at work!
After a nice breakfast, I get the gun out and a target is set up on a nearby hill. Two quick shots, both within an inch of the bull's eye at 100 yards. We are good to go, and today is the first day of our lesser kudu hunt.
We drive to a nearby village and pick up our local game scout. That done, we head out to the hunting area Jacques has picked out, about an hour away. Once we arrive, we park behind a hut, and head out. We are about an hour and a half walk from a spring in a mostly dry riverbed. Those who have walked dry riverbeds will know they are generally rocks or sand. In this case, we had both, as well as some isolated water.
The sun is shining – or, more accurately – beating down on us, as we walk in the riverbed. Walking alternates between difficult – soft sand and boulders – to easier. More of the former than the latter. After about 45 minutes of walking, Jacques tells me we are now far enough away from the village that villagers shouldn’t be a problem. At that point, we see three young boys hiding in the bushes. It seems they have been shadowing us for some time. They are yelled at, and blend back into the bushes.
The sun continues to get warmer, and I begin to get hot. But that’s what one expects in the desert. Within 15 minutes, we see that our three young friends have not left us, and we run into some children swimming in one of the few stretches of the river with water. So much for leaving the village behind. But we continue our trek upriver, heading for the spring.
At one point, I ask Jacques if we can stop. I am not feeling at all well, and am beginning to feel dizzy. Jacques says a few hundred yards more and we should be there. I push on, but it’s becoming more and more difficult – and even though I haven’t been exerting myself tremendously – nothing like in the mountains - I’m having a hard time getting my breath. Jacques can see I’m having some difficulty, but I can’t tell him what it is. I’ve never had this problem – if I’m out of breath, I stop, and within a pretty short period of time I recover and off we go. But now, I can’t seem to catch my breath, and my heart is pounding in my chest. A short break does nothing to improve the situation, and I am getting very dizzy. Jacques leads me to a tree, where he has me sit down. It’s a measure of how unwell I am that I sit on a porcupine quill and an anthill but decide to deal with the pain in the ass later. I am in some difficulty, but more than that, I’m worried that there’s something seriously wrong. My heart won’t stop pounding, and I have lost the ability to get up.
Jacques has a couple of large zip-loc bags in his pack, and goes to the spring for some water (we made it after all!). When he gets back, he tells me to put my head back, and proceeds to pour the water on my head and shirt. In short order, I’m soaked, and, with the help of a small breeze, I’m starting to cool down. Jacques gives me a bottle of water to drink, and then goes off to reconnoiter, while I stay behind with Dean to keep an eye on me. I’m told in no uncertain terms that Jacques has no desire to perform CPR on me (“two mustaches must never meet” he tells me – words to live by in my view).
I would say it took a good half hour for my heartbeat to return to normal. In that time I steadily dried out, and slowly sat up, and then on a log, and finally stood up. The dizziness seemed to have passed, but I had little strength.
Jacques returns at about noon, and immediately gets phone call from Ficker, who is sitting down river, on the far bank. He has seen a big lesser kudu coming to the water, so we – slowly – start to move in that direction. Unfortunately, we almost immediately run into a group of villagers collecting firewood and the kudu has disappeared. We rejoin Ficker on his side, and I’m quite happy to sit at this spot for a time.
Over the next two hours, we are treated to a veritable cavalcade of people coming past our spot, some collecting firewood, some with animals, and some, it seems, just out for a walk. At one point when I think this can’t get any worse, a group of over one hundred sheep and three shepherds comes by. I am convinced all of these people are doing this just to annoy me. If that’s there goal, they have succeeded. In spades.
At one point, Jacques says he will go scout the area. I begin to nod off, and since I’ve pretty much given up hope of getting an animal today, I’m focused on the problem of having to walk the same way again tomorrow. That puts me to sleep. Suddenly, I am woken by what feels like a boot to the shoulder, likely because Dean has kicked me in the shoulder with his boot. He is saying “shh. There he is. Move slowly.” What a way to be woken up. I can’t see anything, but Dean’s pointing downriver. I look, and there, about 220 yards away, is a wonderful male lesser kudu, drinking out of the spring. I slowly get up and move to the sticks, from which my rifle is hanging. Ficker is sitting behind me and I look at him and he says “good one. Shoot him.”
I get the rifle up, and get the kudu in my sights. At that point he looks up – it seems he’s heard a sound and with all of the villagers about, I’m worried he won’t stay. So I forget about squeezing the trigger, and just give it a good yank. Not a brilliant move, I admit, but I felt I was on him. The sound is good, and he leaps into the air before heading up the bank on our side. We almost immediately lose sight of him.
This all happened so fast that we take a moment to collect ourselves. We then start to move, slowly, to the spot where he was standing. About half way there, Jacques pops out of the bushes and asks what I was shooting at. Apparently he’d seen a couple of bulls in the thickets, and was coming back to get me. At least, that’s his story. I think he was catching up on some sleep, but I’ll go with the two-bull story(!). He joins us as we head downriver.
When we get to the spot, I’m looking for blood, and not finding any. Dean asks if I thought it was a good shot, and I say “hell yes,” but given that I’d just woken up, and that I really didn’t squeeze as I should have, who can be sure? Ficker and a couple of trackers and scouts head up the bank, and within a few seconds, Ficker is yelling. “Dead, dead, dead.” The lesser kudu had run up the bank and dropped dead at the top. A perfect shot, exactly where I had aimed.
The wave of relief that swept over me was palpable. More importantly, this was No. 8 of the 9 spiral horned antelope for me. All I need now is the Lord Derby! I am not only relieved, but I’m getting emotional. This guy is as old as they come. Most of his teeth are gone, and layers of his horns are worn away in places. Truly a beautiful animal. I am overcome, and ask for a bit of time, just me and the kudu. As I sit there, looking at him, and holding his head in my hands, I give thanks for the life of this lesser kudu, and for the opportunity to have hunted him, and to have killed him cleanly and quickly.
We take a bunch of pictures, and cut out the backstraps, and the cape. I drink as much water as I can, and we head back to the truck, slowly, but happily.
Again, for those interested, he's over 31 inches on both sides, and totals to 72 7/8", which is enough for a gold, I think.
look forward to the danakil epistle 
