A Few Words on Africa (no more than a few).

Descending from the clouds on a Thursday, my first view of Africa wasn’t quite what I expected. It was just another city with paved streets, houses, pools, and highways. Flying further in, Africa was still covered in clouds, though on the last break through the clouds I found a different city waiting for me. It looked like Africa was supposed to be: set in the Kalahari with dirt roads spider-webbing the countryside and only one highway leaving the city to other cities four hours away.
Luke was waiting for me outside of customs by his Toyota that would take us the 3 hours to the tribal capital of Botswana. After the first shower in 2 days travel we were off to his family ranch where he told me we would be hunting problem leopards. One in particular had killed off all of the horses, donkeys, and was working on the cattle. It was too smart for traps and wouldn’t come to a bait, so it would test all of our limits, the dogs’ limits, and Jako’s driving skills as we scanned the cattle roads looking to get lucky and find a fresh track we could chase down. In all we accounted for at least 4 large males, but the one we were after took us all of 3 days to catch a lucky break, and find a fresh track that more resembled a lioness than a leopard. For 2 hours we tracked it that day, but by 10am we were close enough to set the dogs on it chasing it for 8 and ½ hours that day. By the end we realized that this leopard had tested us all and found us out, and we realized just how smart this thing was, smarter than us. The next day, my last day, we weren’t so lucky. It got away, and Jako left us to go back to his plot close to Maun where he overturned his truck on the way. Luke and I had nothing better to do than cook a beer chicken while I finished up another hunting story. It was a good meal, and I was ready to be back home where things worked out better. I told Luke I still hadn’t finished the story, and he said I needed to come back in October, work or not, and we would get this leopard. So in 8 months I will come back and finish this story. I could tell you of all the scratches I got, how my skin burned, and the names of all the trackers, and their dogs but, I will wait until I have an ending, and hopefully his leopard will not kill as many as last year. In all 100 were accounted for between these 4 leopards, and some people told me, we should just let these leopards be.