Thought it was time to up date this thread and the status of our Aug hunt.
Up until yesterday (Friday morning), everything was still "hopeful" for our 12 Aug departure. Botswana wasn't officially "open" yet but was still some rumors floating around with the locals there that it might just be open in time for our arrival on the 14th. One or our group was signed up with the US State Department traveler program and had entered his (our) travel dates with the US Embassy in Gabby. Yesterday morning he received an email from the US Embassy in Gabby the Gaborone Covid 19 regions was going back into complete lockdown. Even the locals could not leave/enter that district. We even tried to see if we could reschedule flights for Sept and could only get bookings to J'berg and that's it and mid/late Oct gets just a bit too warm during the day.
So......regrettably, it looks like Africa is off the books for us completely this year.
On a happier note:
The govt did officially roll the elephant and buffalo concessions that were tendered and won this spring to all of next year to the same people.
Second thing is, I'm already starting the planning/organizing trips for 2021. I'd like to do a small group 14-day (10-actual full hunting days) trip sometime between mid May and Mid June and another same 14-day (10-actual full hunting days) small group mid July to mid Aug both trips centered over the dark of the moon. I'd also like to take a leopard hunter to the mountains of NW Namibia for a 14-day leopard and PG hunt over the full moon of late Sep to early Oct 2021. Reason for the later dates for the leopard is the water up in the mountains will have dried up by then, forcing the game down to the permanent water points in the valleys and the night temps will be warm enough you wont be freezing your nads off.
Besides myself, I've already got one spot taken for the May/June trip and one spot taken for the Aug/Sep trip. Leaves two spots open for each.
I'll start a new thread on the trips for 2021 in a few weeks when things start settling down a bit.
M3
