Hi again,

I wish I didn’t have to be such a prophet of doom, but ellies are being killed for ivory.

The elephants are being illegally poached because people are hungry for ivory. If nobody wants ivory then no one will bother to kill elephants.

Poachers do it for the money. They know they can sell their ivory. Seriously what can you do with ivory? Fashion some ornamental nicknacks and jewellery.

I don’t need to wear ivory and I hate dust collectors of all sorts. I realise of course that some people may find ivory ornaments pretty. But just think of the massacre that happens to get that bit of ivory into your hands.

Besides elephants are fabulous creatures. They are known to have memories and family relationships. They grieve when one of their own dies. The elephant herd needs the dominant male and female.

Just thinking of the blod shed that happens to capture ivory sends shivers down my back.

Please write a letter to the US government to oppose the international ivory trade.

Seriously nobody benefits. Would you rather know elephants are wondering the plains of Africa or would you rather have an ornament or piece of jewellery which has been begotten by inflicting pain and bloodshed?

Write Letter by clicking HERE

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I know I’ve been a slacker reporting to you on what’s happening in Africa.

I’ve been hanging around Europe and right now it’s cold! But news has come to me that carbofuran is being sold in Kenya and other eastern African countries.

It is horryfying. Right now a poisen made by a U.S. company a product that the Environmental Protection Agency says is too toxic to be used in America – is threatening the extinction of the African lion.

Just a handful of carbofuran – a deadly neurotoxin can kill an entire pride of lions. Sadly this awful poisen is still sold in stores and widely used across kenya and East Africa.

If something is not done soon, you can kiss these great cats goodbye.

Just 50 years ago, it is estimated that nearly half a million lions could be found in Africa. Now lion experts say that as few as 16000<remain. That is a staggering decline of more than 95%. In Kenya, home to world-famous wild lions, the story is especially sad.

The Kenya Wildlife Service estimates that fewer than 2,000 of these majestic great cats now remain in Kenya — down from an estimated 35,000 that made their home in the country just 50 years ago. According to the agency, one hundred lions are killed each year — many by carbofuran.

If Kenya’s lions continue their precipitous decline, there will not be a single wild lion left in the country in 20 years. Can you live with that thought?

At least seventy-six lions have been confirmed killed by carbofuran, with many more deaths left unreported. And while it is a crime in Kenya to use this deadly poison to kill lions, but very few have ever been arrested for poisoning a lion with carbofuran.

A quarter teaspoon of carbofuran can kill an individual lion. Less will paralyze this mighty beast for up to a week, leaving a lion or lioness to starve to death or be killed by other predators.

I am a member of Defenders and ask that you help us to win this fight. Over the last two decades, tens of thousands of Defenders activists hearblped finally convince the Environmental Protection Agency to ban the use of this deadly poison in America. Now we need you help to save the lives of endangered African lions threatened by carbofuran.

Please take action  – all I ask is that you sign the petition to Kenya’s Prime Minister Raila Odinga.

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Have you ever played with Google earth?

I have spent loads of time looking at our beautiful planet via Google Earth. I’ve discovered amazing beaches, tracks of  wild territory – all places i plan on going to.

I’ll admit that my favorite place is Africa. Always when i have a choice where i want to go to it lands up being some where in Africa. I just love the bush and the animals.

But I’m digressing as I’m suppossed to be writing about Google Earth. It came to mind because I was reading about it on the National Geographic Adventure Blog.

They mention that 7 new bird species were discovered in Mozambique and a coral reef fringing off Australia. Incredible.

I also read a while ago that scientists discovered thanks to Google earth that herds of cows stand about munching grass facing north.

Sure most people use Google for silly things like looking at their gardens – I’ve done that. But I’ve also looked at a whole lot of other places.

I find airports interesting – the way all the planes are parked.

It’s also sad to see how much of the jungle is dissapearing.

You can also see how many ships are in the water and pollution. Yikes.

Check out the planet on Google earth.

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I wonder how often have you refrained from taking a trip just because you couldn’t afford the airfare?

You’ll be glad to know that now you can fly a lot cheaper than ever before.

I’m always scanning the net for new offers because I love to travel.

Sometimes I choose to take a leisurely train trip especially when I’m in Europe but most often i want to get somewhere quickly and then a train trip is not the answer.

I found an amazing Ebook written by Tony Morrison who is an ex travel agent.  In this book he reveals all the insider secrets on how you can get the cheapest flight always.

He shows you:

• how to knock $100 dollars off your next ticket!
• exposes truths about buying tickets online.
• how you can earn free vouchers for airfare tickets.

and lots more.

Plus a whole lot of bonuses.

Seriously I got excited when I discovered this ebook  – I’ve already made a big saving.

I know I’m prone to buying a lot of things in the internet – firstly cause I’m always willing to learn and discover new things and secondly sometimes I’m just darn curoius and can’t believe the claims people make about stuff. Buying this book was one of those cases. I just had to find out if his Airfare Secrets are really all that he says.

It only cost $24.95.  I’ve spent that for crap. Let me just say that I was not dissapointed.

The information applys to all airlines around the world. So now there is no stopping you from having a wild adventure with me!

This ebook is a MUST HAVE if you fly a lot or plan to.

I can’t say much else other than this book is an excellent investment.

Save money on every single flight you take in future.

Go take a look at Cheap & Easy Fly and decide for yourself.

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I know golfers are always scanning the golf course ratings so today I have a real treat for golfers looking for something spectacular.

Pezula Championship Golf Course adjacent to Pezula Resort Hotel & Spa is a sweeping spectacle of fairways and greens rolling through the pristine Southern Cape landscape.

Common admit that this golf course is stunning.

Secretly I know you’re dying to come and play golf.

Look I know I’m a useless golfer but I know what makers a golfer’s heart throb.  Me. Okay that’s a joke but I promise I will accompany you on you golf tour in South Africa. You won’t be sorry.

I can see you swinging your golf put and feeling totally pleased with yourself.

You deserve this round of golf.

Common pick up the phone and call me – I’ll organise the best round of golf you and your buddies have  ever had.

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Pezula the ultimate in luxury accomodation

I don’t know about you, but I for one really enjoy luxurious travel and sumptious accomodation.

It’s not that I’m a snob. In fact I’m the sociable kind. I’m not hung up on peoples backgrounds or what college the went to. I love to travel. In my youth I was ecstatic with my interrail ticket around Europe – I not only saw the world but got a good taste and feel for it.

Luxury travel, especially in africa is a real treat.

It’s just so great to stay in a beautiful place like this:

Believe me when I tell you this place is stunning.

Pezula castle is tucked neatly into a nook at pezula beach.

The place is breath taking. You can forget your troubles.

I love wild adventures – I’m okay with a back pack and a sleeping bag – hey don’t fence me in remember?

What’s so great about Pezula is you can sleep on the veranda under the stars.

I’ve slept under the stars on numerous ocassions but errr well just lets say a thin little mat and a sleeping bag can be uncomfortable even though the experience is worth it. You won’t exactly hear lions roaring or see glowing eyes but you will hear the ocean and you will know that you’re absolutely safe and comfy.

If like me you want to see the Big 5 when in african don’t worry there’s wildlife around the corner, well almost – a short helicopter ride and you’re in the african bush.

Pezula is the greatest place in the world for a masterminding group.

Come to think of it – would you be interested in a masterminding session?

It would be a wonderful adventure and beneficial. We’d all leave a whole lot wiser than before.

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I’m sure you know plenty people that have a pussy cat as their pet – maybe even more than one.

But I ask you do you know anyone whose pussys are this size?

Would you dare give it a friendly pat on the bum?

This only happens in Africa.

It’s why I adore the place.

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So okay call me presumptious for saying that the best Golf  Courses on the planet are in South Africa.

After all I’m not even a golf player and I’m not even in South Africa every day.

But I grew up in South Africa and Gary Player lived around the corner. When I was a kid Gary Player was the bees knees for golfing. Tiger Woods wasn’t born yet. As a kid I thought it was so grand that Gary’s surname was Player considering what a player he was. I mean golf player not womaniser. Gary Player was the brains behind the sumptious golf course at Sun City. It’s impressive, even for a golf sloth like me.

Besides there’s so many world’s in South Africa – no wonder it is so loved by the movie industry.  Location is everything and with golf  I’ve been told it’s no different. Honestly where else do you see Pinguins marching across the greens, or have crocodiles slumbering on the banks of a river?  Not for wimps.

A golf vacation in South Africa is bound to set a golfers heart on fire. I’m excited just thinking about all the variety that there is for a golfer. And of course golfers require a fitting place to spend the moon light hours.  Perhaps some inspiring converstaion over a beer? Or that famous South African wine?  Quality food is a must and of course a decent bed is without question.

Maybe you’d like some golf coaching? No prob – what with some of the world’s best golfers hanging about on our greens there’s always a reputable coach nearby.

So be a devil and come take a golfing walk on the wild side.

I’m a tweet/email/call away. Let’s get golfing!

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When moving to my little piece of heaven some four years ago, I discovered, somewhat rudely, what the agent told me about being the sole proprietor, King of my own Land, the main Ranchero, etc, etc was a bit far fetched. In fact, it was a down right bald-faced lie to be exact. Eleonore, the warthog had been there long before me and with a stony “drop dead in your tracks” stare, made it abundantly clear to me that she was the owner of this particular little piece of Africa which I now called home. In the animal kingdom, “first come – first served possession”, is all the law you need to defend your territory with life and limb and to make it damn unpleasant for any intruder wanting to home in on your turf. Being somewhat of a stubborn animal myself, I decided as I had paid some real good money for the place, Madam would simply have to go and find some place else to live other than my porch.

Now I am not sure how many readers out there have ever been in negotiations with animals before, but it is not that easy. Had this been another two-legged animal, things would have been a great deal simpler to conclude. One phone call to my attorney would have had the scoundrel scampering away tail between his legs. But with Eleonore things were not going to be that simple. The look she gave me on our first encounter left me with no uncertainty whatsoever that She was the owner, not just some simple squatter and I was in fact the intruder. So there she stood, all four legs firmly planted on my porch, and me sitting in the drivers seat of my trusty old Land Cruiser, “Shova” (now the origin of that name is an entire story on its own) trying to look as threatening as possible to a warthog, teeth bared, shoulders puffed out glaring back at her with dagger eyes that would have sent any human scurrying back to mummy. This had absolutely no effect whatsoever, so I decided to change tactics.

Since that day I was always under the misguided impression that we humans were the most intelligent beings on earth! After all, we could speak, stand erect, reason, we have the capacity to love and show emotion, which psychologists say sets us apart from our lesser counterparts. We build cities, cars, airplains, we take raw minerals from the earth with wanton abandon and make things to make our lives easier. Now surely with all this superior intelligence I could devise a plan to get a simple pesky warthog off my porch so that I could go into my house and establish my manly presence in my new home, catch a long cool shower after the dusty 10 hour trip, pour myself a Johny Walker Black and sit on MY porch watching the ever spectacular winter African sunset.

Charged with new enthusiasm and confidence, I climbed on Shova’s horn, revved her motor and jumped up and down in the seat like a demented orangutan. Any casual passerby witnessing this spectacle would have had me certified immediately. The only effect it had on Eleonore was for her to casually turn around, antenna tail thrust at a 90 degree angle from her body, trot casually to the end of the porch and calmly flop down in the last remaining pool of amber sunlight. The message was abundantly clear. “This is my turf and I am here to stay, so take your smelly, noisy man-made animal and shove it where the sun don’t shine”! Round one to the warthog with an attitude.

Disillusioned at my failure to stamp the entire human race’s superiority over lesser beings and weary from my demonic antics I slunk, keeping a watchful eye on the almost lifeless grey blob at the far end of the porch, through the back door into Eleonore’s house. After unpacking a few things and taking a well-needed shower, I poured myself a stiff whiskey and slumped in my recliner in the living room, just in time to see the last flaming rays of the sun melt into the distant aubergine mountains. Oh well, four out of five isn’t too bad I guess…… but, I still want the porch.

I sat up a while mulling over the long drive, the naked, harsh beauty of Africa and its diverse people and problems. How wonderful it must have been when game roamed plentiful and freely across this continent. The rivers, crystal clear and sparkling in the sun or swollen and muddy after a typical African rainstorm. The magnificent mountain silhouettes, skillfully carved over thousands of years, clearly defined in the crisp, smogless air, uncluttered by horrendous deformities created by the superior beings to enhance his lifestyle. Hoe I wish I could have witnessed this Africa, before humans tore her heart out, raped her virgin soil and vandalized her natural wealth. Starry eyed I heard a faint shuffling on the porch and my thoughts snapped back to the present and my current predicament. It is my porch, I paid good money for it. Perhaps we could negotiate some kind of a deal. After all, this is Africa and far more complicated agreements have been hammered out. Sharing the porch is out of the question as warthogs have a reputation of being somewhat ill tempered and unpredictable. Maybe I could build her a porch of her own down by the waterhole. That way she would not have to go too far to enjoy her own sundowners. Damn, this whiskey is good! It’s giving me the wisdom to negotiate a land deal with a warthog! Warily I stumbled to bed, secure in the knowledge that some kind of an intelligent compromise could be reached.

Before first light I am up and making myself a cup of coffee. Cautiously I peer out the living room window. The porch is deserted! Ah-ha, this is my chance. I ease out the sliding door, making sure hogzilla is not lurking in the shadows. I am alone on my porch, I am king of this place! I sit quietly sipping my scalding coffee listening to Africa awaken in the pale false dawn. I can hear the hippos down by the river. An Eland snorts in the distance, probably startled by the presence of some predator and the birds begin their daily charming cacophony of calls. This is the life and I would not wish to be any place else right now, when in true African fashion, things change faster than the fall of the Zimbabwe dollar. There she is, eyeballing me from the one end of the lawn. The warthog from hell is back. I feel the hairs on the back of my neck rise. Is she going to charge me? My mind races, possession is 9/10ths of the law, but does she know that? Maybe if I stand up and make myself look really big it will scare her off. My mind goes back to my show stopping performance on Shova’s front seat and the absolute non-effect that had on her. No, that’s not going to work. So I sit quietly and watch her instead. Why the hell did I close that sliding door? Why did I not wear brown underwear? She strolls casually across the lawn, her beady black eyes never leaving me. I am armed with a coffee mug and a teaspoon, she has teeth the size of a back-actor’s bucket. This is not going to be a fair fight. I wonder how badly I will get cut jumping through the closed window. That’s also not an option as the nearest doctor is 50kms away and I will not give her the satisfaction of bleeding to death on our porch. Suddenly she turns and heads for the flowerbed. Ten minutes is about all it took her to uproot everything that even resembled a plant in that bed whilst I took the opportunity to sneak back into the house. That was her way, I guess, of showing her disgust in being banished, even temporarily, from the porch.

This is how the somewhat weird relationship was formed between one of earth’s superior beings and a lowly dumb animal. Eleonore had outwitted me from the time she first laid eyes on me and had cunningly gained the upper hand in the relationship. She is the boss and she knows it. I am weary wary of her and have kept my distance whenever sighting her.

Since those early days we have always had that antagonistic explosive tolerance which two adversaries have when forced to live in the same space. I have seen enough prison movies to recognize the signs. She would sneak onto the porch at night and beware of anything left out which she would destroy with criminal abandon. Friends and guests found this rather disturbing and many unsuspecting cameras, i-pods, pieces of clothing and the like have fallen foul to Eleonore’s wrath. So much so that about two weeks ago I decided to enclose the porch with neat, sturdy gum pole railings which she cannot get through. So now my porch is really and truly all mine. Superiority conquers in the end.

Feeling really pleased with myself, I decided I would treat myself and take a ride into town, do some shopping, catch up on the local town gossip and watch a movie. I needed some fuel for the Range Rover as well, so I decided to use it instead of Shova. Kitted out in my best khaki “go to towns” I approached the carport and saw that one of the Rangies tyres was flat. Damn, now to change a flat in 36-degree heat! I got closer and my eye caught the front bumper, which was almost torn off! The grill was badly gashed and the fender dented. What the hell happened to my new vehicle? Typical farm workers, no regard for anything they have not paid for. I have seen how the throw equipment onto the back of a vehicle with gay abandon. I swung around accusingly, looking for any poor unsuspecting worker to vent my anger on, when out of the corner of my eye I saw a grey shadow sauntering off in the distance.

I’m damn sure that bloody warthog had a smile on her face!

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I think I love all animals. They are all part of the world. This could get me into trouble but I also think I love the serpant animal, you know the one that did the tempting…..

Thing is all animals play a part in the eco system. From the tiniest parasite, I believe even they have a place in the world to the mighty elephant are what make this planet so amazing.

Even though Africa appears to have many troubles it is still one of the last frontiers. Elephants roam free. And I hope it stays that way for all eternity. I mean would you want to live in a world that has no more animals? I wouldn’t. I love knowing that there are whales in the ocean and polar bears even though I’ve heard they are having a hard time because of global warming.

Okay so this isn’t about global warming it’s about the most fascinating thing that takes place in Zambia. At Mfuwe Lodge in the South Lungwa National Park to be exact.

When Mfuew Lodge was built nobody thought about the yearly walks the elephants take to get to their favorite snack – wild mangoes.

A herd of 10 elephants comes to eat the fruit which lasts about 4 to 6 weeks.

There’s never been a problem between the elephants and people. The guests are allowed to stand in the lounge to gawk at them behind a barrier.

The herd is led by the mama of the mamas in other word the matriarch lovingly called “Wonky Tusk” by the staff at Mfuwe lodge. Still they are wild and untamed even if they look cuddly and cute in the pictures.

Take a look at the pictures.

All pictures by Mfuwe Lodge Zambia

This is a truly phenomenal experience.

It happens in November, it’s pretty miserable in other parts of the world that time of the year.

Contact me to set up a small group and enjoy this experience with me.

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