At noon we are leaving the Madaka Ranch after I shoot banana teeth and then pack. This is day 1 of my elephant hunt but day 7 since I left Alabama.

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1 At noon we are leaving the Madaka Ranch after I shoot banana teeth and then pack. This is day 1 of my elephant hunt but day 7 since I left Alabama. We drive for 6 1/2 hours and decide to spend the night in Pretoria. We are on the road by 6 am and find ourselves at the border by noon. It took 4 1/2 hours and $400 in bribes, to cross both the South African and Zimbabwe borders. We hired two guys at the South African side to bypass the que line and walk Peter s gun declaration through. He said it would cost $20 but by the time he was finished, he had asked for $20, 2 more times for a total of $80 and about 1 hour of our time. Then there was the Zimbabwe border. Jeeze!! :D We hired a herd of folks there without even knowing it. They also said $20, but almost 4 hours later and $380, we were on our way to Bulawayo. This will take about 4 1/2 hours drive. Now with the road blocks again. Remember last year s Elephant hunt?

2 So far we have been stopped 4 times while in Zimbabwe and we're not to even to Bulawayo yet.:(! By the time we got to camp, we had through 13 police road blocks.) We spent the night with Peter Johnson a friend of my PH, Peter. He has a nice camp just 50 miles north of Bulawayo. Day 3 We couldn't start hunting until we got a bow permit and Monday was a holiday, so we scouted the first day in camp. Not only did we Scout but we also hung leopard bait and motion cameras. We found lots of elephant sign. We replenished two salt licks

3 with salt. We are hunting on the border of the Chizarria national forest. Peter is my PH and he found a crested Ginny fowl feather and gave it to me for luck. We found a large pool of water in the bed of the dried up river that had lots of elephant dung and a stained rock that had recently been urinated on by an elephant. Like in the last four hours or so. We created a total of five leopard baits and discovered at least two good elephant areas. Peter is only five days from recuperating from malaria for the seventh time. He caught it on his last hunt here. Come to find out, it is one of a very few places in Zimbabwe that does still have malaria carrying mosquitoes. So this trip, I do plan to use my mosquitoes net over my bed. Gone through a total of 13 police road blocks. We spent the night with Peter Johnson a friend of my PH, whose also named Peter. He has a nice camp just 50 miles north of Bulawayo. Day 4 I'm sitting alone in the lodge having my 2 cups of coffee. I'm the first one up, anticipating the day's adventures. I've noticed that almost every time Peter cranks the truck the starter drags.

4 Today we plan to travel 2 1/2 hours to an area loaded with elephant and leopard. We are still just scouting until my permits arrive. They are suppose to be here this afternoon. Until then, we'll continue to scout and put out baits. When we got to the area, we drove for over an hour before we spotted any elephant sign. And it was very old. The further up the mountain, the fresher the sign was. But the freshest sign we saw was still about 4 days old or older. We decided to drive to the end of the trail where there was a small water hole and take a look there. Once we got there, we realized why all the sign was old. All around the water hole was small melons that had been cut open and strychnine had been poured in. This was done to poison the elephant to harvest their tusk. It has killed the family herd that was using that area of the Bush. Problem is that elephants aren't the only animal that eats melons. And the local villagers eat dead animals. If they find and eat a poisoned animal, they too will die. This is a very serious offence and the local and national game scouts with us started collecting evidence. They immediately called headquarters to report we what we had found and more scouts were dispatched to try and catch the poachers. Not sure when they arrived cause we never saw them.

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6 So we drive back to camp for a late lunch. My bow permit hasn't made it yet so this afternoon we will check the leopard baits that we had put out yesterday. We checked all the baits, moved one and started a new on. The only bait that had been hit was bit by a hyena. Every time I walked close to a deep pocket of water in the river bed, I AM reminded of the crocodile story from the last time I was here. Day 5 Again today I'm the first one up having my coffee during the calm. As of when I went to bed last night, my permit was not in camp. A Bush baby is screaming above the boma as I contemplate the day. I pray that the scout got here sometime last night with my permit. If not, all we can do is scout again today. I'm waiting for Peter to get up so I can ask him. I finished my 2 cups and no sign of Peter so I'm going to take a shower. Starting to get anxious about my permit. After my shower, Peter told me that they still haven't arrived with my permit, so we spent the morning checking leopard baits and looking fir elephant sign. One of the leopard baits had been hit by a leopard and 2 of them by hyena. I pulled the sd card and inspected the pictures to find that the leopard was a female. After viewing the pictures still no permit in camp.

7 We decided to go back to the dried up water fall where there was lots of fresh elephant sign three days ago. We want to put up a camera there. After lunch we heard from a nearby village that they had spotted some elephants. So we decided to drive there to investigate. That starter is still dragging, hope it doesn't break. WOW! :-) Right at dark we saw a group of 30 to 40 elephants. NOW all I need is my permit. When we got back to camp, the national scout was there and he had my permit. Hurray!! :-) Now time for dinner and to bed early. We are going to drive 2 1/2 hours to a village where it was reported someone saw a lone bull. We will go investigate him in the morning and if that doesn't work, we'll go after the herd of 40 tomorrow night. It's a lot easier to hunt one than 40 set of eyes.

8 This doesn t look that far from this picture but it s a long way down to the water. The river bed id dry now but there is a deep pocket of water at the bottom. You can tell that elephants come here often to drink and cool off.

9 Day 6 The first one up again today but today I have a good reason! :-) I have my bow permit. For some reason, (revenue), Zimbabwe charges $1500, for a permit to hunt with a bow but not a gun. That my friend, is what I've been waiting on. I got it now and having my coffee with the resident baboons. They are just across the dried up creek from me making all kinds of noises. I warned them that this morning was different from yesterday in that I now have my permit and nothing is safe, especially any lone elephant bull. There's a slight breeze this morning and as yesterday, it s a little chilly. But like everyday since I've been here, one of the camp guys has already made a fire in the fire pit and set the breakfast table. After bacon, ham and eggs, over easy, I took my shower and we were in the truck on our 2 1/2 hour adventure after the lone elephant bull. We got to the area we were going to hunt just at daylight. It was 6:00 am. Right there at the truck was a huge pile of elephant dung. It was so fresh it was steaming. We got on the tracks and started walking. After about a mile, Peter told me there were three bulls. One that was about 25 years old, another at 20 & one at about 15. He knew all this from the tracks. My hopes are really high as this is what we are looking for. No cows with calves but one or more bulls without cows. Cows with calves are like sow bears with cubs or a sow hog with piglets. They are dangerous. In fact they smell or see you and they have a calf, they are more than likely going to charge and it won t be a mock charge, it will be for real. And they aren t coming to introduce themselves. They are coming for blood.

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11 About an hour into the stalk we came within sight of a small village. We went there to check with the locals to see if they had seen the elephants and how long ago it was. They had not seen them that day but had seen them several days before.

12 We continued to follow the tracks and after 3 hours we came across another 3 of these villages of whom all have the same report. Truck starter is still dragging! What's going on and why the villagers are so eager to help us is 2 fold. They know if we kill, their village is going to get a lot of meat. Plus, most of these villages plant some kind of crop, like corn, sorghum, corn or cotton. The elephant get into their crops and destroy them. They have to build bomas on poles, erected off the ground, to stay in at night to keep watch of the crops to run the elephants off when they show up in the middle of the night. They beat drums to run them off. They would love for us to take care of this problem for them. This particular village built one of their look out bomas beside a termite mound.

13 During the last hour of the stalk, Peter found a spotted hyena skull.

14 During this five hour hike we crossed over 2 mountains. We never actually saw the elephants, but we did see some memorable sights. Back at the truck, I was exhausted. My legs and back were very tight. I have to do some stretching before we start the next hike. I'm sitting here now back at camp eating lunch and writing my story and I have a family of baboons less than 20 yards away making all kinds of barking sounds at me. WOW, I love being here. This afternoon we are going out early and the plan is to go to the area where last night we saw 30 to 40 elephants. On our way out we pulled the sd card at the bait where we saw the female leopard. There were 48 pictures. I was hopeful that a male had joined the female. Once I looked at the card, it was all female but she was very brave. She was there off and on from 4:30 pm till 8:00 am the next morning. Leopards are usually very shy and feed at night. This one was showing itself during daylight hours afternoon and morning. A very good sign!

15 Once we got to the leopard bait, Benson decided it was closer to go after the lone elephant 2 1/2 hours away instead of where the herd was yesterday, so Peter made the drive there. At the first village we stopped at, a man there sold me an ax and a hatched that he had made. I thought they were pretty cool.

16 When we got there, it was beautiful. Very steep and mountainest if there is such

17 a word. Starter's still dragging.

18 We found the bull's tracks after talking to the locals who guided us in the correct direction. We followed the tracks just long enough to figure out where he was headed. Then we tried to determine where he had come from. In the process of all this scouting, we came across this steel and concrete structure on top of a cliff on top of a mountain in the middle of nowhereville. It was of a cross. Benson said the Catholic church had put it there. Short of a helicopter, I got no idea how?

19 Day 7 Up first again this morning but hurting like he$$. Peter walked my butt off yesterday. I ace all over. Something is wrong with the generator this morning so I'm having my coffees by the fire. After two cups of coffee, I went back to my room to stretch my sore legs and take a shower. When I finished all that, eggs and link sausage was calling my name. Scarffed that down and in the truck for a 2 1/2 hour drive to the lone elephant village. Once we got there, we herd conflicting stories from the different villagers. Each village wants you to shoot their rough elephant for the two obvious pre-mentioned reasons. So they tell you what they think you want to hear to get you to hunt around their village. One man told us he saw a huge elephant alone by himself yesterday in the middle of the afternoon. We ask him to take us there and he agreed. It was about 2 miles and when we got there, the track was at least five days old. What a bummer. So we keep walking to another village where they tell us they saw a trophy elephant just yesterday. The older man sent his son with us to show us where. So we walked and we walked. We walked so far that even the trackers complained. At 2:00 pm, we finally got to the spot he was taking us. The droppings and the tracks and the broken branches indicated that the elephant hasn't been there in 7 or 8 days. These villagers will tell you anything to get you to hunt their area. Elephants eat mostly leaves and bark. You can tell the elephant s age by the size of the digested fibers. When they're young, their teeth are not worn and they chew their food better and the digested fibers are smaller. But as they get older, their teeth are more worn and they don't chew their food as well and the fibers are larger.

20 And in this area of the country, in every pile of elephant poop, you find there are almost always a lot of Amarula seeds. Yum yum, I'll never drink Amarula again without thinking of my elephant hunt in Zimbabwe. Peter said that when their poop is runny and not in a loaf, that it's a nervous bowel movement because he's being pursued. Obvious this one felt the pressure of our pursuit. Peter made me a bracelet out of tree bark, by peeling it and twisting the fibers together. He used the bark of a mnono tree, which is also called the Prince of Wales tree. We came across a huge tree with mud all over it. It looked like the trees in the swamp of Alabama where hogs scratch their backs. Only the mud was way above my head. If you saw this in South Alabama, you wouldn t go hunt it, you would run and never come back. Peter said it was where the elephant has scratched his back. Anytime we found a used waterhole, there was always several trees that were covered in grey mud higher than your head. You never really know just how big an elephant is until you are standing, in the wild I might add, up close and personal to one.

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22 Benson, our tracker, got a phone call from one of the villagers from yesterday telling us that there were elephants in their garden right now. Problem is they are an hour and 1/2 away and its 1 1/2 hours till dark. We kicked it into high gear and got there, out of breath, in one hour. One of the village ladies was shouting at us waving her arms and pointing her finger. The village dogs where barking their heads off. We headed in the direction she was pointing. After about 300 yards we heard a tree Limb break. We threw it into low stalking gear. It's now ten minutes before dark. It is a 3/4 full moon but still going to be too dark to shoot with a bow in ten minutes. We could hear grunting, crashing, and trumpeting. Yes I said trumpeting. They were making all kinds of noises. Peter checked the wind and we had to swing around to get it right. We came to a huge deep gorge. It was straight down. I heard a rock crack down in the gorge and Peter pointed. I could see a mother and a baby elephant drinking from a pool of water at the bottom of the gorge. Then I could see two bulls to my right. I could hear several more further to my right. Problem is, there is five minutes of light left and they are in the bottom of a gorge. Cliff rocks everywhere. 3 minutes of daylight left and one grunts to my right and sounds like he it's on our side of the gorge. 1 minute of light left and I hear him kick over a rock and he is definitely on our side of the rock. Peter whispers to me that there are at least 15 elephants all around us. Ten minutes after dark, I hear one trumpet again but this time to my left and sounded like 20 yards away. Ten minutes, 0.2 seconds after dark, I crapped my pants. Peter said, " can you smell that?" I pretended I couldn't hear him. LOL :-). Anyway it is now way after dark, a huge gorge in front of us and 15 or so elephants all around us. With one or two of them trumpeting every five minutes. Talk about hair standing up. I had shaved my neck this morning and it instantly grew out so it could stand up. LOL. Any way, I'm wondering how we going to get back to the truck several miles away, in the dark, with 15 or more elephants all around. All of a sudden my alarm went off and I woke up! :-) Just kidding. No really, we are in a precarious predicament. Peter had a red light attached to a head band that he turned on and attached to the back of his head. He said, follow me. I couldn't have stuck closer to him if I had used super glue AND gorilla duct tape. I was on him like white on rice. Going on two hours with hair raising sounds, ankle twisting rocks and thorns to the face, we arrived at the truck. Day 8 I have blisters on top of blisters on my feet. I forgot to mention that it's freezing in the morning and up to 95 degrees during the middle of the day. My face and arms are as black as Benson's and he's our tracker. My face is burnt from the sun and I don t get burnt? Go figure? LOL.

23 We drove back to the village that we left last night. We got there just before

24 daylight. We ask one of the villagers if they saw or heard any elephants during the night and they said they had not. But at 3 am they heard the villagers a mile away beating drums to drive the elephants out of there crops. So we took off at a fast pace to the other village. Once we got there, a young man showed us the fresh tracks. This is a huge footed old bull. We took out after the tracks to try to catch up to him. He has a 3 hour head start and for every one of his steps, it takes 10 of ours. While we are tracking this beast down, I never really explained who all is with me. I have two guys they call scouts. But what they really are is game wardens. There is a local one named Malaya. His job is to make sure I pay the trophy fee for anything I kill or wound. Then there is the national scout, his name is Andrew. I like him a lot. His job is to make sure we don't violate any laws and to make sure we don't go over into the national forest. We are hunting land that borders the Chizarira national park. Then there s Peter. He is my PH, Professional Hunter. CJ is my camera man. Then I have 2 trackers. Peter's tracker is Benson. Not too be confused with my PH at Madaka ranch last week, named Benton. Izak sent his tracker along also, his name is Jacob. Izak is my outfitter. He also was my PH when I shot the lion two years ago and when I hunted elephant last year. And then of coarse there is me. The Hunter. We all followed the tracks for over two hours hoping to spot fresh eaten tree limbs or poop, to give us an indication of how close he is. An elephant will break off a limb and put the whole thing in his mouth. He will eat the leaves and bark off it and spit out the skint stick. The locals call this an elephant tooth pick. When you find one, you can check how moist the sap is to tell how old it is. If any leaves fall out of his mouth, you check them to see how dry they are. This can get tricky, as different leaves from different trees have more moisture than others and some dry faster than others. So you must know your leaves and the type of tree and how fast the leaves of that tree get dried up. Also when you find poop, you check to see if it it's still warm. Maybe even hot. If not, then is it still wet. The poop is in layers like womp biscuits. You know the Canned biscuits that you womp on the table to open. You know how when they are cooked you can peel layers off. Well most elephant poop is like that. Depending on how many layers you have to pull off before you find wetness gives you an idea of how old it is. If there is no wetness, then you look at color. It starts a redish-brown and turns grey as it dries. Poop is the best gage to determine how far you are from the elephant you are tracking. Looking at this one, I see now where the term, pinch a loaf comes from. It is the size and shape of a large loaf of bread.

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26 It is now 2:18 pm & we are still following his tracks. It's 90 and my blisters are talking to me. The last sign we saw was poop and it says we are still 2 hours behind him. Normally they walk slowly while they break off limbs and push over trees to eat. But when they are on a mission to get somewhere, they don't stop to eat. They just get it. This one appears to be on a mission today. We finally found a hole where he used his tusks to root up a particular tree that has a bulb for a root that peels in layers a lot like an onion. I mean it looked just like a huge onion. This means he has slowed down now and started feeding. There are now more tracks. Smaller tracks. That means somewhere along the lines, he joined a family group. It's now 2:54 pm and I'm telling you it's hot. The sweat bees are terrible today. They call them mopanie flies. They are all over my face, up my nose and in my ears. If you breath through your mouth, you can't help but swallow a few. It's 4:00 pm now and it's starting to cool off a bit. It's only 88 now, LOL. Not that I can notice the difference. At 4:30 we finally caught up with the elephants. We saw a female with a calf first.

27 Unfortunately the wind is wrong now and they all know we are near. You talk about noise. Several of them started blowing at us. One female raised her ears up and flapped them at us. We are desperately looking for the bull. We spotted a young bull, but not the one we've been searching for all day. The elephants decided they have had enough and they trotted off. We are now circling around to get the wind right and try to get in front of them. We were not successful. They were too quick and got away from us. It's dark now and we're on our way back to camp. The starter is still dragging. I pray it doesn't break down. As we went by one of our leopard baits, we notice my camera was on the ground. A hyena pulled it off the tree and bit several holes in it. He totally demolished it. I got the sd card out of it but it's bent. It's a shame because the bait had been hit by a leopard. And from the looks of it, it might just be a male. Back at camp, I'll try to repair the sd card and read it with my camera. I put the sd card in my mouth and used my teeth to try and flatten it back into shape. I was only able to flatten it enough to see the first 8 of 104 Pictures. Those pictures were of the female leopard at 4:15 pm three days ago. The other pictures were corrupted from the hyena bite. I hope hyena slobber won t kill you? I m going to continue to work on this sd card until I can see those other pictures. Unfortunately the only pliers I have are my teeth.

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29 Day 9 This morning Benson had a premonition. He said the elephants are at the salt lick. So we loaded the truck and headed to the salt. An hour later, we see that he was right. There is all kinds of fresh poop all around the lick. We could hear limbs snapping near by. We got the wind right and started our stalk. By 7:30 am, we had made 5 different stalks. When your close and on the south end of a north bound elephant, you don't need to look for tracks, just follow your nose. The smell brings back fond memories of my childhood when my mom took me to grant park zoo. Or was it the time I took a drive with my dad after he had eaten 3 plates of corn bread and butter beans. I think they were both about the same smell? There were over 30 elephant in this group. We saw at least 2 bulls big enough to shoot. It's extremely hard to get close to a specific elephant when there are 29 others all around! When glassing 30 elephants in the brush trying to find the bull, I found out by experience that your looking for the elephant with the fifth leg that doesn't quite touch the ground. It's a lot darker too. Almost black. When your this close and glassing 30 elephants, you'll actually see some poop. Fall out of his butt. Now it DOESN'T get any fresher than that. But at this stage you aren't wondering how fresh it is? A baby got a little away from mom and was 43 yards from me. The Mother came over to get the baby and caught a whiff of my scent. She through her trunk in the air, flared her ears and let out a loud trumpet.

30 Peter, touched my arm and motioned that we needed to back up. He didn't have to tell me twice. As we're backing up, the whole group took off in the opposite direction. BUSTED! Now the truck's ABS is acting up! It keeps locking up the brakes and stalling the engine. Benson had another premonition. Since he was accurate the first time, I was anxious to hear what he had to say. He felt like the elephants would go to a specific spot on the river to water. So off to the river following Benson. We picked the pace up to almost a run to get to the river ahead of the elephants. Talk about blisters. We have walked so many miles over the last few days, forget about my feet. I have blisters on both my thumbs from carrying my bow so many miles. We finally got to the spot Benson was talking about. We sat down to wait for the elephants. CJ pointed out a sausage tree across the river. It has seed pods that looked like long sausages.

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32 While waiting for the elephants, I ask Peter how old the baby elephant was. He said no more than one week. Then he told me that the gestation period was 22 months for a female baby and 21 months for a male. Unlike humans, I guess the males develop faster than the females? After sitting in the grass for about Thirty minutes, we could hear the elephants coming. We saw one who stopped dead in his tracks. The wind had shifted and he smelled us before he got to the bank. He turned and high tailed it. So did all the others. When Peter stood up to leave, I pointed to where he had been sitting and said it looked like an elephant had been sitting there. He ask me if I as trying to say that he was an elephant's a@@?. I said, well at least I didn't say you were a horse s a@@. Anyway, one bad thing about tracking elephant, seeing them all morning and following them for so long, when the fun is over, you still have to walk back to the truck. On the way back to the truck, Benson checked his messages. He had one from the village from the day before. The guy who gave us false information about the lone bull. Peter had told him not to call again unless he personally had seen an elephant and not just any elephant, but a bull. So Peter was pretty certain that he really had see one this time. Two hours later we are back at his village getting instructions. It's now 1:30 pm and the villager said he had seen three bulls at 4:00 am. Trying to catch up to an elephant after giving him a 9 1/2 hour head start, impossible! But we must try. We tracked those brothers for over 10 miles before it turned dark on us. Just before dark, we found ourselves in the bottom of a gorge. I know at some point the tracks are going to have to take us out of here which means only one thing. We will have to mountain climb again. Just before we started our ascent upward, we disturbed a baboon. Man was he mad. I could still hear him hollering at us, long after we got to the top of the gorge. Fortunately they had gone in a huge semicircle. We were only a little over 2 miles from the truck. Back at camp, after supper, shower and shave, I started loading footage into my laptop, as I have every night. But tonight I was tempted to view what CJ had filmed. Then I decided to try again to retrieve the pictures off the broken sd card from the chewed up game camera. I was finally successful after biting it umpteen times with my teeth. It has lots of pictures of the female leopard. No male. We always hang the bait so a hyena can't reach it, but I noticed in the last five pictures, the bait was moving for no apparent reason. After zooming each picture, I caught a glimpse of what appeared to be a head. I zoomed further to discover that a hyena was jumping up and taking bites out of the bottom of the bait. When this picture was taken, he was actually hanging on by his teeth until the flesh tore loose. I did get pictures of the camera being torn off the tree but the fact that you can't see what is doing it, tells me that it was the hyena and not the leopard. I also hung the camera high, thinking he couldn't reach it. If the leopard had got it, she would have climbed the tree to do it. And would have been caught by the camera. The hyena had to jump up to grab it with his teeth, never exposing it s self to the camera.

33 By now it's 2 am & I have to get up at 4 am. What was I thinking. I wasn't? Day 10 The camp gets its hot water from a device called a donkey. They have the same thing in Mexico and that's what they call it there too. It's an outside wood burning hot water tank. They fire it up at night. So my night shower is extremely hot. But, I'm abruptly awaken in the morning when I take my ice cold shower. Yes two showers every day. One at night to relieve the sore muscles and knock off the dirt. And one in the morning, to painfully wake up. Although painful, the latter is absolutely necessary.

34 On the way to look for elephant, we stopped to check 3 leopard baits. Another one of my trail cameras had bit the dust. The hyenas are killing me. Hyenas two, Bob zero. There was a nice set of leopard tracks in the road and Peter is certain that's it's a male. So we moved another bait closer to the road that he had traveled. And set a camera there in hopes of getting him to start feeding on the bait.

35 Benson spotted a herd of elephant, so the stalk began. There was 20 to 25. There was 2 shootable bulls. One was much bigger than the other. We got on a high cliff that gave us a vantage point. We spook some baboons getting there and they weren't to happy. Boy did they carry on. Screaming and hollering. They wouldn't shut up. I just knew the jig was up. The elephants where at an alert position just as I thought, but after a while, even though the baboons where still hollering, the elephants calmed

36 down and began feeding in our direction. All 20 of them. My heart skipped a beat or two. Closer and closer they came. An adolescent bull was 23 yards away slowly coming up the side of the hill right toward us. I was excited because the rest of the herd was following. The bulls were somewhere in the back. The way I was thinking was totally wrong. I thought this was a good thing and I was about to shoot a Bull Elephant. Good thing Peter is here doing all the thinking. You see the kid is walking right to us and the path didn't allow him to deviate but to go right over us. And even if he could side step us, once he got past, he would have winded us. Peter knew the mother would follow right behind the baby. Peter picked up a rock. A big rock. I'm thinking, that ain't big enough! :-) But he wasn't going to use it as a weapon like I thought, he later told me he had planned to throw it in the Bush to the left, hopefully scaring the baby to the right. Causing all the others to follow.

37 He thought better of it and decided we should pull back and reposition.

38 We moved back and to our left. The herd came right up the path we had been standing on. Now the entire herd is coming straight at us, but now instead of being on a straight line on a narrow path, they're all spread out. Once two cows got behind us, the jig was up. They winded us and ran off and so did the rest of the herd. Pity too, the biggest bull was headed in a direction that would have positioned him about 20 yards upwind. We'll give them some time to settle down and pursue after them later. As I'm writing this we came across a small rock python. I got real close and took a picture as he coiled up to strike.

39 Not too be outdone, Peter caught him and posed for pictures.

40 Peter said he only sees one python every two or three years. But believe it or not, 2 miles further on our way to check another bait, less than an hour later, we came across another one. Two in less than one hour. And last year when I was in Zimbabwe, I saw 2 in a three day period. After lunch we got back on the tracks of those 20+ elephants. They took us down one mountain and up another. Down one more and up another. We came across a dirt road 3 hours into the tracking and it got dark. Peter told us to wait for him there and he would fetch the truck. Gladly I said. Here's where it got interesting. While waiting for Peter, I decided to do some stretching. Especially after all the walking I've done for the last couple of weeks. When finished with every kind of stretching I could think of, I tried something different. I laid on my back and lifted both my legs straight up in the air locking my knees straight. After pulling my legs as far as I could, this stretching really made my lower back feel great. So, I ask CJ to come over and push my legs even further. He started pushing ever so slowly further and further. At first it would hurt then seconds later would feel so good. So, he would slowly push further and hold for a few seconds, then push even further. At this point, I'm bent in half and my toes are about one foot from touching the ground past my head. He held it there for several seconds and I could feel the relief on my lower back muscles as they were being stretched. Here's where I made a mistake. Heck, I'm only one foot from going all the way. So I ask CJ to take my feet all the way to the ground. MISTAKE! It pulled my butt up off the ground and I felt one of my vertebrae move out from my back. CJ let go of my feet and when I brought them back down, my cyanic nerve got pinched. I immediately knew that I had messed up big time. I didn't say anything until I was in the truck and headed back to camp. The jarring of the truck about killed me. By the time we got to camp, I was dying. I went straight to bed without waiting for supper. I took two Celebrex and laid down. Jeffery, the server, brought me supper on a tray and I ate in bed. Day 11 The next day I couldn't get out of bed until noon. I was dying. Peter offered to take me to the hospital. The Celebrex wasn't working. Peter had some anti inflammatory medicine called panamor AT 50. I took two of those and by 6 pm was feeling a lot better. Two more before bed and pray that I feel good enough to kill an elephant by 4 am? Day 12 Again the first one up. I really enjoy my alone time having my coffees. My back is still very bad. I really should give it another day but I'm running out of time. I'm sitting here trying to figure out what to do. Let me finish both cups and take a shower before I decide. I just took one of the fastest showers I have ever taken in my life. The water was freezing. Cold water and hurt back don't go good together. Peter talked to

41 the guy in charger of the hot water to tell him to make sure it is hot both day and night. Heck, I should have complained 10 days ago. Anyway, this morning I remembered that a long time ago my dad gave me some Novocain patches and I had put them in the back pockets of my carry on back. I found them and put one on my back and it seems to be helping. I'll eat some bacon and eggs and give it a try. Once out of camp, we passed a huge tree. Almost as big as a baoabab tree. Peter said it was a ficus fig tree. He said that ants pollinate the fig by crawling inside the fruit through a hole in the end of the fruit that opens up when the time is right. Birds eat the fruit while perched in a tree. When they defecate from the tree the seed will germinate if it falls within the shadow of the tree. It sprouts and grows in the direction toward the tree. When it reaches the tree, it consumes the tree by growing all the way around it. It devours the tree and lives off the other tree's nutrients. It is a cannibalistic tree. I found this to be extremely interesting.

42 Because of my back we decided to hunt a little different today. Instead of walking for hours, after old tracks, we drove around the different blocks cutting the tracks until we didn't cut them again to determine which block the elephants where still end. Hoping that they hadn't crossed a grassy road without leaving a sign and giving us the slips. We think we have determined the block they must be in and started to track the last tracks we found. After about 30 minutes, Jacob spotted an elephant. There were about 20 in all. They were in groups of 7 here and 5 there. The first group we stalked up to, we got 70 yards and figured there was one young bull with a tusk missing on his right side. The rest were cows and calves. A cow with a baby is the most dangerous animal in the bush. They will search to kill, if they even smell human odor. God forbid they see you. When your 20 miles from the truck and there are no trees big enough to climb. Someone is going to die if you are detected by a mother with a baby. Now when I say someone, it is usually the mother. If not, then it is someone in the hunting party. An elephant can push over or pull up any sizable tree. A tree is not a sanctuary from a charging elephant.

43 The next group had the matriarch female and lots of other cows and calves. We got to within 40 yards of them.

44 The last group we stalked up to were all cows and I had noticed that some tall grass had pulled my fiber optic sights loose and I had to quickly fix that before we spotted any bulls. We sadly had to watch them walk off since there was not a shootable bull in the bunch. The word Donkie is not only the wood burning hot water heater but is also thank you in Africons. Tatinda pronounced ty~ten~da, means thank you in the shona language. That's the language that Jacob speaks. I've been having to say that a lot today with my back the way it is. Jacob has been a God sent blessing. Picking up things for me and looking after me when it comes to lifting stuff. We drove around the rest of the day looking for fresh sign but haven't seen any since the elephants this morning. The bumps on truck have played you know what with my back, but it actually wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be. We all just got a big adrenal rush. We're still looking for elephant. Driving along in the truck. Just at dark we spotted a group of them just off the path. Peter stopped the truck and turned it off. This truck's starter has been dragging All week. And the ABS has been locking the brakes up and causing the truck to stall. It is a straight shift 5

45 speed. So anyway, the elephants are on my side of the truck. Peter gets out on the opposite side to glass and see if there are any bulls. I shot the elephants with my range finder. They were 47 yards. Just after I ranged them, I felt a slight wind on the back of my neck. I then reached into the truck to get the wind indicator puff bottle. About the time I squirted a puff in the air and it started right toward the elephants. I shouted here she comes. About the same time, Peter got his binoculars back on them, here come the matriarch female. Two trees were up rooted and made a loud cracking sound. Other Trees were parting, limbs were breaking, grass was splitting. I hollered, she's coming Peter. Peter jumps in the truck. Turns the key and nothing happens. I jump in on my side and the rest of the crew is scrambling to get in the bed in the back. It looked like the keystone cops. The truck starter drags again. The elephant is at full charge and now only 20 yards away. Ears straight out and trumpet blowing. Less than 2 seconds away. Peter turn the switch off and then back on and it cranked. He popped the clutch and praise God, it didn't stall. ABS didn't malfunction or bye bye Bob would have been the outcome. Elephant blows trumpet again and keeps chasing us down the path only 5 yards away from the truck. We didn't start pulling away until Peter hit 3rd gear. She blew again and flapped her ears several times. WOW what a close call. Good thing the ABS didn't lock the brakes up again. On the way to camp, we pulled sd cards out of 2 cameras at leopard baits. Back at camp, we had a lot to talk about. I ask CJ, my cameraman, did you get that elephant charge on film? He said footage, MAN, I shit my pants, what do you mean footage? We all just laughed. I said, Yea, I thought I smelled something. LOL Day 13 As I'm having coffee this morning, I'm reflecting back on last night. Yes, at dinner we had a lot to talk about. Everyone was pumped, excited and full of adrenalin and testosterone. We all admit the charge is something we'll never forget. But I sit here knowing that had Peter taken 2 more seconds to get back into the truck, been further away, or had the starter completely failed, or the ABS acted up again, the outcome would have been quite different. I thank you LORD, for sending your guardian angels last night to surround and protect us as we experience your creation and all that it has to offer in the way of excitement and enjoyment. Thank you Lord for life itself and the pleasures of just waking up in the morning and hearing the sounds all around me. You have blessed me Lord beyond measure, more than anyone could ever deserve. I don't take anything this morning for granted. I acknowledge you, your creation and what you have done for me, amen. I looked at the sd cards from last night and one bait had a civet cat, a genet cat and 2 hyenas.

46

47 We are driving this morning to the place where we found the poisoned melons. It's quite far, so we are leaving this morning at 3:30 am. So it's time now to leave. We have driven on such a remote area on top of a mountain with a view that gives the feeling of being on top of the world. I ask Peter if he thought that AAA could find us if we had a flat. Peter ask me, " What's triple A?" needless to say, he didn't get the joke! :-) LOL. We drove all day all over this area looking for fresh sign. About one hour before dark, all we could find in the way of sign was at least 4 days old. We drove to a sorghum field closer to camp and hit the jackpot. There were more sign here than we have found anywhere. And it ranged from weeks old to just hours old. We decided to call it a day and start back here at daylight tomorrow morning. Day 14 At 2 am Peter got a text from a villager that he was looking at 7 elephants in his village right where we had spent all day yesterday looking at old sign. We have a dilemma as to where to go this morning. We decide to check leopard baits as we drive

48 past the honey hole, on our way, really out of the way, to the village we where at yesterday. Which ever produced an elephant first? The first bait we came to had a female and a male leopard tracks. We pulled the sd card and sure enough, both a female and a male leopard as well as 3 hyenas.

49 Then not 1 Mile further down the path, we came across steaming elephant poop. 1/2 Mile further we spotted a baby elephant on our left. The park boundary is on our right. We got out and followed the tracks for about 1 mile and they did eventually cross over into the park. Can t hunt in the park, so back to the truck and continuing to look for elephants. At 11 we decided to refresh the bait that the two leopards had gone to and to set up my ground blind 30 yards away. We ate a quick bite of lunch and got to our task. Making sure the wind was correct, we erected the blind and repositioned the log leading up to the bait. We needed a better picture of the genital area of the large leopard to positively identify it as a male before we waste anytime hunting it. Don t want to pay a $20,000 fine for shooting a female. So now with two cameras set at different angles and the log ramp set for a broadside shot from a blind, set up down wind of the bait, everything is perfect. Now all we needed to do is set in place the night light I brought from home. This is an amber light that runs off eight D batteries.

50 It cuts on at dusk and off at daylight. We positioned it above the bait perfectly aimed back down where we hoped the cat to soon be? On with the elephant hunt. We went back to where we saw the baby elephant and looked for the tracks of her parents to try to determine which way they went earlier this morning. After two hours of tracking we still have no idea which way they went. Back to the truck and more driving to try to find them. No elephant this evening. They have disappeared. Better luck tomorrow. I'm very tired today. Good night. Day 15 Today is Saturday June 6th. Last night I told Peter that today was going to be the day. This will be a day I celebrate for the rest of my life. The anniversary of today will forever always be remembered. After my shower we are in the truck early. Checking the leopard bait on our way out to make sure the bigger leopard is a male. It's a $20,000 fine to shoot a female. Don't want to make that mistake.

51 Day 17 I haven't written much in 2 days cause I caught something that made me sick. Shouldn t have put those sd cards in my mouth after having been in the mouth of those hyenas. Violently vomiting for last two days. With a pinched sciatic nerve and stomach problems, I wasn't up to writing much in my journal. I persevered and hunted but to no avail. We didn't see anything. For those who have seen first hand how I throw up, y'all know why. The whole continent of Africa was put on notice! LOL. When I throw up, it s violent!!! ANYWAY, today I feel good. It is my last full day of hunting; I must shoot an elephant today. We determined that the Leopard that we thought was a male, Where we had erected the blind, was just a huge female. It's now noon and this morning was the least active day we have had yet. No fresh sign at all. We have been far from camp today looking at old and new land with no luck at all. Benson got a call from the camp gardener that he saw an elephant just the other side of camp at 7 am this morning. At the time we got the call, we were 2 hours away. So back to camp we go to try and catch up with this lone bull elephant. I had noticed these herring bird nests that were like an enclosed squirrel nest. Peter pointed out how all of the nests were always on the west side of the trees. They do that so that they are warmed up by the sun just before night fall. Peter said if the sun is not visible, you can use the nests to tell you the correct direction of west.

52 Just finished a quick lunch and now we are off for my last afternoon hunt. I have felt pretty sluggish today almost in a fog, but I've felt much better than the past few days even with the fog. We are on the lone bull's tracks by 1pm and track him all the way up until dark. We plan to get back on those tracks in the morning and pick back up where we left off, on the last day of my last hunt. Day 18 It is the morning of the last day of my hunt. I didn't fall asleep last night until 2 hours ago. I had way too much on my mind. I have already packed everything except what I need to hunt with today. That includes my bow and my camera equipment and that is about it. Everything else is packed. I'm going to be leaving a bag full of things with Izak that I won't be needing again until I come back to Africa, so I may as well leave it all here rather than pay for an extra bag of luggage. I've already had my 2 cups of coffee and now for my shower, then my last breakfast in camp. We are 2 hours into trying to find fresh sign of elephant. No luck so far. We past a community elephant rub.

53 Apparently this is like a white tail community rub back home. The elephants have found a tree that every time they go past it, they rub it to leave their scent on it as to let everyone know they are in the area, or maybe to mark their territory. In any case this tree was well polished all the way to the meat of the tree in places. Well it is now noon and time to go back to camp to load everything into the truck and head to Victoria Falls. We have seen no fresh sign of anything today. It s like they fell off the face of the planet. It was several hours drive to Vic Falls. When we got there, we checked into a bed and breakfast. The Bed was beautiful!!

54 After we got all settled in, Peter took me to the national park. We saw lots of Baboons and a few different antelopes. But the most interesting thing we saw was a 5,000 year old Boabab tree.

55 AFTER dark we left the forest and Peter dropped me back off at the Bed and breakfast. They had a delicious dinner waiting for me. I tried to get on the internet to update things but the power was totally out and had been all day. The Bed and Breakfast had a generator but it didn t power the internet. So I would have to wait until I got to the airport tomorrow. At the airport, right after the shuttle dropped me off, there was a group of natives, dressed in the traditional clothing and dancing their traditional dances. It was nice for that to be the last thing to see and remember right before getting on the plane.

56 Sitting on the plane, anticipating this long flight, I reflect back on the whole adventure and I once again am reminded of how blessed of God I am to have the life I have and the rest of my life to come. I know that in the not to distant future, I will be back to visit my home away from home!