One Heck Of A Ride

122 Chapter 13 Tanzania Fabled Land Of The Maasai U nlike today, hunting was a widely respected and popular activity during my impressionable teenage years. Books by Ernest Hemingway, Robert Ruark and other distinguished authors celebrated hunters as heroes. Blockbuster films with hunting themes were made in Tanganyika (now Tanzania) and their leading men were some of the best-known celebrities of that era, including Gregory Peck, Stewart Granger, Clark Gable and John Wayne. Things have changed greatly over the past fifty to sixty years, though. White hunters now are called professional hunters, and when hunters appear in books and films they usually are the villains and thugs. To most people today, the word “safari,” a Swahili word that once conjured up images of hunters and hunting, has come to mean a journey to Africa to photograph wildlife. (I’m old enough and stubborn enough that I refuse to conform or change my ways. “Safari” still means hunting in Africa to me.) What hasn’t changed over the decades is Tanzania’s spectacular scenery that has come to epitomize Africa. Snow-covered volcanic mountains still rise thousands of feet above short grass plains, savannahs, woodlands, and tropical rainforests. Its unique, varied, and abundant wildlife still draw thousands of visitors every year, including hundreds of big game hunters from all over the globe. Hunting writer Craig Boddington, who has written that Tanzania is “the birthplace of safari as we know it,” also said it has “the greatest variety of game (and) is arguably the best modern safari destination.” It probably was inevitable that I would hunt there eventually, but it was my pursuit of a ring that took me to Tanzania sooner rather than later. By 2005, I had taken all but eight of the animals required to qualify for the club’s coveted World Hunting Award Ring, the epitome of international hunting, and I was determined to complete that challenge when I booked a twenty- one day safari in Tanzania through J.K. Premier Safaris of Florida. I would hunt with the same PH from three camps operated by two different safari companies, Intercon Hunting Safaris and Malagarasi Hunting Safaris, Ltd. The flights from Los Angeles to New York to Amsterdam on Delta and from Amsterdam to Kilimanjaro International Airport on KLM were long, but I was thrilled to see East Africa’s iconic snow-capped mountains Meru and Kilimanjaro when we finally landed near Tanzania’s border with Kenya on 19 August 2005. Malagrasi Safari’s greeter, a man named Peter Lawrence, was waiting for me after I cleared Customs and he helped me collect my gear and rifle case before driving me to the Impala, a modern luxury hotel in downtown Arusha. On the drive into town along tree-lined streets, Peter and I had a chance to get acquainted. When he learned I was a floor-covering contractor with a passion for big game hunting, he said he also loved hunting and building. We didn’t have much time to discuss our other mutual interests, though. Once inside the hotel’s lobby, I met Muhammad Charles Horsely, the professional hunter assigned to guide me on my twenty-one- day safari. Over dinner, Charlie and I talked about the animals I wanted to hunt and checked my licenses and permits. I told him I’d traveled half way around the world primarily to hunt southern