GPS data
Today I found a website that showed me how to make a cable for my GPS, another place that had a free software download to look a the tracks.
Looking at the places I’ve been, looking at the google earth aerials of the locations.
And now I miss Africa. I miss waking up in the cool morning and putting on a kettle for tea, miss making bacon for the guys, miss drinking tea with a healthy dollop of sugared African honey. I miss the mosquito nets. I miss the smell of the bush.
I miss carrying a rifle everyday. I miss sitting down at the end of the day in camp, eating a piece of something I killed earlier that day, cleaning a rifle, sharpening my white hunter, drinking tea,writing in my journal.
When I got to Zambia my first reaction was ‘What a shithole”.
Now I long to be there again. I want to see ndola during a rain. I want to drive an airboat across the bangueulu flats. I want to see Mike Fisher and sleep in a grass roofed hut in a low dambo surrounded by impala and blue balled vervet monkeys.
I don’t know how Africa got undermy skin, but it did.
Update: because grammadeece asks, here’s a link to a picture of a vervet monkey. I didn’t take a pic myself, but this is a good one, that demonstrates their- er- unique appendages well.
9 comments Og | Shooting, Uncategorized
You’re damn lucky to have seen it and I envy that as I’m not likely to.
I grew up reading Robert Ruark and all the columns in Outdoor life and Field & Stream and have dreamed of going there for years.
Yeah, I’m sure you do want to go back & hope you do. Hope I can go too.
Now you know why is is near impossible for us who were born in Africa to leave.
Africa is in your blood now Og!
“I miss the smell of the bush.”
I’m sure a lot of guys our age have the same complaint.
Do you have any pics of the blue balled vervet monkeys? And please don’t put up a pic of some Democrat.
I feel that way about Honduras – been 20 years now since I was last there. Not a pleasure trip, I “did time” at Soto Cano Air Base. Now I am willing to pay big bucks to go on tours that I turned down to stay in the company area, drink beer and bitch about being stuck in Honduras with nothing to do.
Not sure if it is something under my skin, in my blood or just a stubborn intestinal parasite.
“I don’t know how Africa got undermy skin, but it did.”
It’s understandable; since the human race started there, it is part of us all. It is probably like coming home for some people.
Yep, you’d love Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica. We need to head that way and never come back.
Kevin,
I did some work at Soto Cano, but that was several months before it opened.
Thanks for the pic, Og. That was fascinating. I wonder how they hide themselves from predators. You’d think they would be easy to find.