One Heck Of A Ride

113 Liberia And Its Duikers Driving fourteen hours each way on the nearly non-existent roads along the beautiful west coast of Africa was (as Mel Toppence wrote) tiring but fascinating because of its people who still lived as they have for hundreds of years, its unique rural villages, its vast rainforest, and its game species found nowhere else. (Although I didn’t see them, where we hunted also was home to pygmy hippopotamus, forest elephant, giant forest hog, bongo, chimpanzee, three types of pangolin and other unique and interesting mammals.) All these years later, I still am impressed with how Thomas Banks was able to overcome the logistical and political problems of operating a hunting camp in Liberia during a civil war. be returning to the states, and hired a trophy shipping company called Flora and Fauna to care for my trophies and clear them through Customs, and everything went well. I was able to collect my bag with the skins and skulls when I landed in the U.S. and continue on to Lompoc and deliver everything to my taxidermist. Unfortunately, my camera was “drowned” during the hunt and the only photos I have of my time in Liberia were taken with a disposable camera I’d packed at the last minute for a spare. Believe it or not, even though nearly everything about that hunt was screwed up because of the war, I enjoyed my adventure and feel fortunate to have hunted in Liberia before it moved into the twenty-first century. A carving from Liberia