W/4 - would love to have you be able to make a trip. I plan to keep doing these every year. I'll be putting together at least one trip to my friend's place in Namibia for myself and two others that would like to come and at least one trip of four others that would like to go to Botswana. Gerhard has a friend with a place on the western side of Botswana that I would like to hunt next too, so maybe two trips to Bots next year. If I get more than 2x for Namibia or 4x for Botswana, I'll just make another trip!
One of my small regrets is that I didn't get to Africa sooner in my life. Like a lot of people, I read ALL the books and watched ALL the movies etc. I just presumed that an actual hunting safari was MUCH more expensive and than it currently is. While yes, you CAN spend huge amounts of money on "full bag, Big 5" or "Dangerous 7" out of old style tented camps (the sky $$$ is the limit), there are also 7-10day multi planes game species hunts that can be had for similar prices of some guided US/Canada deer, elk, bear and moose hunts. Only difference is you still can't drive to Africa
or bring the meat home.
Another small regret is how fast it all is changing, some for the better and some.....not so much. Just in the last 15yrs and getting back a couple of times a year I can see it. Just in the last year for example, the paved road was completed from Gaborone passing by Gerhard's main gate. The amount of new housing developments and shopping malls all around the Namibian capital of Windhoek and the main tourism/vacation cities along the coast is staggering. The huge influx of Chinese all over Africa (generally turning out to be a bad thing even before the WuFlu).
If some guys actually start putting pencil to paper and figure out what the cost of buying into a hunting club lease, planting/maintaining food plots, ATVs etc., a lot of times they could actually afford a trip to the "dark continent". Sure, there are advantages to hunting in the US too, no question, but once you make a trip to Africa.................
