OK!  Time to get caught up on news of our trip.  We both got sick just before we flew home and went to the doctor as soon as we got home and got on antibiotics.  We've been laid up for the past six days but are seeing signs of improvement.  I finished uploading pictures to the Africa Picasa web album and here's the link:  https://picasaweb.google.com/117681050623804397624/Africa?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCMKQqfW6p9vKFA&feat=directlink

Safari Day One:  Kobus, one of the South African shooters, picked us up in his Comby (an 8-passenger van) at 7:00 am Sunday morning, the morning after the awards banquet, for an 11-hour drive north to his 35,000 acre ranch Jackalskull near Petrusville in the Great Karoo region.  Our safari group included Guenther and Petra of the German team, Graham and Jonathan of the Australian team, and Brice, Ed and I of the US team.  As we left the valley in Namaqualand (Land of the Khoisa) to drive up onto the plateau (Bushman's Land), Kobus commented "welcome to The Loneliness."  And he wasn't kidding--hundreds of miles of semi-desert and strange mountain formations called Koppjes (pronounced "copies"), with a town of maybe 200 people every 100 miles.  The drive up the West Coast Namibia was a total surprise.  Because of its proximity to the ocean, there's enough rainfall to support miles and miles of vineyards, orange groves, and canola fields.  You would have thought you were in Florida or California!  We stopped for lunch at an early 1800's farm house that had been restored and now serves as a museum, restaurant, curio shop.  The menu included many traditional dishes such as Boboti, Waterblommetjie, meat pies.  Arleen tried the Waterblommetjie because it is only prepared and served in this particular region of Africa.  It's a stew of lamb, water lily plants, and spices--delicious.  We arrived at camp at 7:00 pm, got settled into our rooms, and then Kobus came back to pick us up and take us to The Big House for dinner.  Marise, his wife, served a yummy meal of springbok meat pie, veggies, and salad.  After dinner we returned to camp and sat around a bonfire and enjoyed relaxing and looking at the night sky.  It was quite disorienting because we weren't seeing the usual constellations that we see at home! Kobus pointed out The Southern Cross to us so we could get our bearings. The buildings were made of homemade brick and had bathrooms and showers and electricity. All the bird sounds were different.  On the drive back and forth from camp to The Big House, we saw kudu (a large antelope), kangaroo-like rabbits, mongoose, fox.

Safari Day Two:  Up and at'em early to go hunting!  Brice and Jonathan wanted to hunt, while the rest of us just wanted to observe and see wildlife.  After breakfast outdoors in the Grass Hut, Brice and Jonathan got their muzzleloading rifles sighted in at 100 yards.  Kobus arranged for one of his trackers/guides to take Brice hunting for impala or gemsbok, while the rest of us piled into an open safari truck to accompany Kobus and Jonathan to the area where there is a herd of wildebeest.  We bumped and jolted over dirt roads, rocks, and small bushes until we found a large bush that Jonathan and Kobus could hide behind.  The trick to standing in the back of a safari truck is to let your backbone slip and become Gumby!  If you try to brace yourself you'll be very sore!  We dropped them off and then the Bushman tracker/driver drove us to the other end of the area and turned left to find the herd and hopefully make them move towards Jonathan's hiding place.  Well, the wildebeest had many choices about where to move and they chose not to go in Jonathan's direction.  So we had to drive to the other end of the area and make them move back in the other direction. This continued for a few hours.  In the meantime we saw many herds of springbok, reebok, blaisbok, eland, kuru, and wildebeest.  Jonathan finally was able to take a shot at 150 yards on a blue wildebeest and shot it in the heart on the first shot.  The only problem hunting with a muzzleloader is that you can't turn right around and get a second shot off if you miss it!  This happened the first time he took a shot earlier in the day.  The black wildebeest turned just as Jonathan shot.  So we had to drive around some more to find the herd again!

The Bushmen trackers, Kobus, Ed, Guenther, Jonathan, and Graham all helped load the 500 lb. wildebeest into the back of the open safari truck.  That meant the rest of us who rode in the back of the truck that morning had to walk back to where they had staged another vehicle for us to ride in.  Back at camp, the Bushmen proceeded to skin and gut the wildebeest and put it in a cooling room to hang for several days.  Brice and the guide Johann came back a little later in the afternoon with a gemsbok.  Everyone enjoyed swapping tales around the fire that night.  Our dinner was grilled springbok backstrap and snook (a very tasty fish).