ZIMBABWE: 45 Days Trip To Africa Part One: Bubye Valley Conservancy, Zimbabwe

[Tokoloshe Safaris]

Love it!! Keep it coming and watch out for the potholes and elephants!!

Note to self: pay the fixers!

On the fixers there is a time and place. I have had it result in passport confiscation, handcuffs, attempted robbery, attempted truck jacking resulting in 4 vehicle 100 mile chase. When I have to have one our vehicle cross at Beitbridge I use one of my workers going in and cross at Martins drift returning.

Departing Zim thru Beitbridge not bad add 1 to 2 hrs usually.

Lon

 

[Sideshow]

Looks like they’re still up to there old tricks at the boarder!
I saw the guy stamp my passport but with no ink, was lucky I checked it before leaving the building.
Loving the write up.

 

[Doubleplay]

Sorry for the interruption…
So we knew the buff was hit but when we walked to the spot there was no blood.
We could see them at a distance stopped and none looked like hurt.
“Your buffalo is not with them” Pete said and that gave me hope.
At this point we all regrouped and Pete send the trackers towards the thicker stuff to look for tracks and call us if they find any.
Meanwhile we are still looking for blood in the general area.
10 minutes past and the skinner came back and gave us the welcomed news.
They found a single buffalo track and blood.
We followed him to where James was waiting for us at the edge of very thick stuff and he pointed to Buffalo standing 50 yards away.
At this point it’s dark, not pitch dark but close.
We got a little closer and James said he could hear the labored breathing of the animal.
Me,I could hear nothing but only Pete telling me to put one more in him.
I raised the double but trough the reflex sight could barely see the dark shape.
I aimed at where I thought the front one third of the animal and fired.
We saw him moving away and getting into even thicker stuff.
Now it’s really dark and basically Pete’s iron sights are useless along with my trijicon even in the lowest light setting.
He made the call to back off and later we all agreed it was the right call.
That night at dinner he talked about two options.
One, the buffalo will somehow stays alive trough out the night and we’ll find him.
Two, he dies and we’ll find him but depending on hyenas or lions we might find him eaten.
I was hoping for the first option or the second option with the lions because he said lions will eat the back side and you can still have a shoulder mount.
It was a restless night.
Will continue and picks are coming.

 

[Doubleplay]

Morning came and and we drove back to the area, this time with Pete’s two Jack Russels.
First order of business was to drive around to make sure there are no fresh lion tracks for the well being of dogs and us.
We did not find any but to everyone’s dismay we found hyena tracks and lots of them.
Released the dogs from where I fired the last shot and about a 100 yards away they found the buffalo.
I smelled it before I could even see the animal.
Actually my wife did before me and covered her nose.
You know how woman can smell!
I’ll let the pics do the talking.

I hope he was dead when they got him.
I’ll continue with some other pics and an interesting fact tomorrow.

 

[Altitude sickness]

Exciting story, nice bull