Hunting abroad when Shit Hits The Fan

[Northern Shooter]

I'm sure there will be a couple stories here considering how well travelled many AH members seem to be.

Have you ever been in a situation where you were on an international hunt and SHTF?

This could be related to civil unrest, war, terrorism, disease outbreak, maybe a specific hunt was outlawed....while you were on the hunt.

Curious to hear what you've been through.

 

[Hunter-Habib]

I hunted in Indonesia and returned home safely… only to find out that the hunt had been illegal. My outfitters were arrested less than a month after I returned home.

This was in the days before the internet. But I still get shaken up when I think about it. I never set foot in Indonesia again.

 

[Northern Shooter]

I hunted in Indonesia and returned home safely… only to find out that the hunt had been illegal. My outfitters were arrested less than a month after I returned home.

This was in the days before the internet. But I still get shaken up when I think about it. I never set foot in Indonesia again.

Wow, sounds like you lucked out. Which species? I'm assuming no trophies made it out of the country.

 

[Hunter-Habib]

Wow, sounds like you lucked out. Which species? I'm assuming no trophies made it out of the country.

Sunda Sambar, Babirusa.

 

[Frostbite]

With the current political mess in the U.S. and the danger of Putin going nuclear if things go badly for him in Ukraine.........I am limiting my travel to the minimum until things stabilize.

 

[Ontario Hunter]

I booked a hunt for August during COVID. The vaccination program up here was a shitshow (understatement!). In February I had to have emergency appendectomy. They discovered a hernia during the surgery but unprepared to deal with it. Recovery was poor and pain so bad I was back in hospital. Then it was discovered I also had gallstones. Nothing could be done because both hernia and gallstones are "elective" surgery which was closed down. In the meantime I traveled south to Minneapolis VA hospital to get my vaccine (+ two week quarantine). Then a window opened for elective surgery. We flipped a coin and chose gallbladder. Surgeon wouldn't do both as too many holes in my body = too much opportunity for infection. While I was in post-op the window for elective surgery closed again. VA in Montana called to see if I got my shot. Yep. Johnsons so one and done. "How are you feeling?" Shitty. Guts in my scrotum and I can hardly get off the couch. "We can fix that for you." Really? Next day surgeon calls from Minneapolis and I explain things. He sets me an appointment for three days hense. "Sounds like we need to get after this sooner rather than later." Yeah, well it's gonna have to be somewhat later as I am required to be quarantined two weeks after returning home. "Oh right. We will see you at noon Thursday and do surgery at 9:00 a.m. Friday." I was on my way home by 3:00 p.m. Saturday. Arrived to find the water heater leaking in the basement. Nothing for it to replace it myself. No plummer could come to the house during quarantine. I plumbed that one in so knew I could do it again. Ordered a new one online from Home Depot to be delivered the next day. The delivery guy shows up with a bag of solder flux only. Where's the tank? He gives me the foreman salute (shoulder shrug). After an hour on hold I finally talk to someone at the store. The online system automatically defaults on every single item to curbside pickup. Water heater and solder are waiting for pickup but he will have them to the house in a half hour. I go down into basement and discombobulate the old heater, drain it (floor drain two feet away), pull it up the stairs with an old pack rope from horse wrangling days, walk it two feet across, the back porch landing, and kick it out the door onto lawn. New one still in the box is easily slid downstairs. I plumbed it in and ready for a shower ... finally. Two days later the surgeon calls to see how recovery was going. Okay I guess. Managed to replace the water heater. "Are you nuts! You could tear the repairs apart." I was pretty careful. Just call it extreme physiotherapy. He was not amused.

In the meantime I had sent my 30-06 to a Superior, WI "gunsmith" to be rebarreled in May. Still didn't have it back by August and he was ghosting me. So I drove down (after quarantine restrictions lifted) and got in touch with sheriff's office. He did not ghost them! Within a half hour the douche bag calls and says come pick it up. What a dump! The guy claimed he couldn't finish the job because his dog bit him. Yep, there was a mean dog and I did not leave my vehicle. He comes out with significantly bandaged hand (what kind of idiot would keep a dog that bit him?) and my rifle in three pieces. He gave it to me and I gave him the F-bomb and drove off. Due to leave for Africa in four days! There was a machinist/gunsmith way up in Red Lake, Ontario who said he could put the barrel on for me. So away I go, only to arrive at the border the very morning it first opened to Americans (I am US citizen and Canadian permanent resident so allowed to cross both ways). It was a hundred degrees and traffic was lined up five miles trying to cross the border. People were running out of gas keeping air conditioners running (mine was broken!). A real disaster. Fortunately, the Texan behind me had several coolers with ice melting so I could keep my dogs watered. Needless to say I was not prepared for this. Not even a toothbrush, let alone change of clothes. I beat it straight to Walmart and bought new duds and some toiletries. Then off to the Far North to get my gun fixed. Then back home to discover the govt would not give me a COVID certificate to fly. They had farmed that out to some civilian outfit that wanted $600! No shit! "Well sir, you will pay us $600 or throw your ticket away." F-you! I told my daughter to look after the dogs, jumped back in my car, and drove 7.5 hours back to Minneapolis VA hospital and they printed up the travel doc. Gassed up and drove home arriving about midnight with flight to Africa leaving at six. Had to pack up and be at airport an hour early with guns. Then fly to Toronto, Frankfurt, Joberg, and Port Elizabeth. As I recall, by the time I arrived at the lodge I had not slept in a bed for more than five days. Really had not slept at all.

Edit: The water heater never got billed to my credit card. I tried several times to call Home Depot but lines were tied up with phone orders. The morning in-store shopping restrictions were lifted I was there to sort it out. The gal called the manager. I explained I didn't want someone to get in trouble because of the mistake. He smiled. "No one would get in trouble. That was MY mistake. I took your call." He said it would have been a free water heater if I hadn't made it right. "Are you okay if I knock fifty bucks off the price?" Oh hell no, don't do that!

 

[mdwest]

Ive been fortunate enough to not have many SHTF situations happen while on hunts... the only thing I can think of off the top of my head was our daughter had an extreme allergic reaction while in camp.. but honestly it was handled expeditiously and professionally by the team in camp.. and the hospital we went to in Rustenberg couldnt have been better..

outside of hunting, Ive been unfortunate enough to have been in a number of SHTF situations across the African continent over the years.. I was sitting in Juba in December 2013 when the civil war kicked off.. my team was embedded with senior leadership of the SPLA.. so things got pretty interesting pretty fast...

on another occasion, I landed in Kinshasa literally right as Mai Mai militants were kicking things off hard in the north and the DRC army was scrambling to mobilize to deal with them.. made for an interesting day landing at the airport seeing technicals filled with "troops" in cut off jean shorts with DshKa's mounted in the back racing all around our gulfstream while we tried to get to the terminal..

another South Sudan story... went to dinner one night out in town with another expat that I was working with... something didnt taste quite right, but I figured it was just the spice in the local cuisine.. I was clearly wrong... about midnight I literally (not an exaggeration) started projectile vomiting and shitting to the tune of at least a gallon+ of very putrid liquids all over the place.. painted the floors, walls, and even a bit of the ceiling in the little bathroom in my quarters.. then apparently passed out (complete blackout).. when I didnt show up for a meeting the next morning the other expat and one of our locals came looking for me and found me completely out cold in the middle of the floor of the room.. I woke up a few hours later in a "clinic".. looked around and saw a glass IV bottle (had to be at least 30-40 years old) plugged into my arm that was depositing a clear liquid that had little black flakes of material in it.. according to the Somali doctor (but, I shouldnt worry he assured me, because he attended medical school in Kenya and was a "real" doctor lol..) it was just a bottle of saline to help get me rehydrated..

I promptly removed the needle from my arm (thankfully only about 1/3 of the bottle had been deposited into my body at that point.. and I suppose none of the black flakes made it into a vein since I didnt die...).. and told the "doctor" it was time for me to leave... He insisted that I take a "prescription" of cipro with me.. I had an extremely bad lower GI bug that needed to be killed that I probably picked up in my previous nights meal.. He left and promptly came back with a little brown paper sack with a handful of pills inside that were clearly not Pfizer manufactured pills lol.. Im going to guess someone in a back alley somewhere in Pakistan crunched together some aspirin and maybe some rocksalt and then etched "cipro" onto the tablets

I was bad sick for about a week.. but surprisingly the "cipro" did seem to help a little bit.. I pretty much just drank every bit of fluids I could find all day and night and continued to puke and shit myself for the next couple of days, and then started improving, and was finally able to board a plane and head back to the states a few days after that (where I could get some real medical care)..

There are numerous more.. my biggest SHTF moment was actually in Brazil though, not anywhere in Africa.. so we'll reserve that story for another time and place lol..

 

[Rare Breed]

I'm sure there will be a couple stories here considering how well travelled many AH members seem to be.

Have you ever been in a situation where you were on an international hunt and SHTF?

This could be related to civil unrest, war, terrorism, disease outbreak, maybe a specific hunt was outlawed....while you were on the hunt.

Curious to hear what you've been through.

If shit hits the fan also covers major surgery injury on the very first day then yes with the following. On the first day of a 17 day hunt 10 with D&Y in Zim and 7 in SA on my first morning at D&Y in the dark i tripped over a short wall, no alcohol involved, and tore the tendon off the bone on my left triceps. My surgin when I got home called me an idiot since I should have immediately flown home to reattach but hey…I was in Africa and could still lift my rifle to my shoulder but that was it so I stayed. The result was instead of a 2 inch scar I now have an 11 inch scar

 

[Hogpatrol]

Nothing like @mdwest and just a little unnerving. The year after china flu, we were in Grahamstown RSA getting our required tests to return to the states. It was before an election. We got the tests then had to go to a shopping center to pay by credit card. While there, the doors were open and we heard a lot of commotion and saw stores closing and locking their entrances. Shoppers were getting in their vehicles and leaving. There was some sort of demonstrations going on in the city with roads blocked, tires burning in the streets and it looked like it was gravitating to this area. Our PH says, "I'm going to go get the truck and move it out front". The young lady who was processing our payment came around her desk, pulled the wrought iron door closed and then the main one and locked it. We're thinking, shit, this isn't good. We eventually had our payments cleared and when she opened the door, we quickly got in the truck and departed. Pulling away, I noticed the doors were again closed. Our PH already knew the plan to get the hell out of there so we missed any real kerfuffles.

 

[coreydb]

Global Rescue insurance claims to evac in these types of scenarios. I was in Israel just as the Tel Aviv airport shut down for COVID in Feb 2020. I was able to get out, but only after United Airlines (the flight I came in with) arranged something with the Israelis.