I went hunting in South Africa in the summer of '05. We flew into Johannesburg, where customs attempted to confiscate our rifles (a Winchester Pre-64 Model 70 in .30-06 and a Ranger Arms custom 7mm). I was 19 at the time and had done the paperwork for the rifles under my name for the trip. You have to be 21 to own any sort of firearm there and they raised a shitstorm at the customs center over it. All the agents were blacks and spoke terrible english, so it took almost an hour just to figure out wtf was going on. We (my mom, sister and I) started freaking out because we didnt know wtf to do about this BS but our outfitter found us at just the right time. He spoke with them in africaans for awhile and eventually handed them a paper sack, which we later found out had some cash and a few coca-colas in it
. They let us do some other paper work and eventually leave with the rifles, and we headed up to Lephalale to the lodge.
The drive through Jo-burg and Pretoria was fascinating, it was my first time out of the US. But even from the highway, the slums looked indescribably squalid. I'll post some pics when I get home later. Once we left the urban areas the landscape reminded me of south and west Texas. Extremely arid and mostly flat. The rest of the hunt went great and was a blast. At dinner one night, our outfitter (a middle-aged, native born, land owning white) told us he was planning on moving his operation out of South Africa, to either Australia or New Zealand. Apparently, the blacks in the government are fucking the wealthy whites every which way possible, and they are fed up with it. From what he, every other white employee there and my later research has told me, damn near every white is GTFO now. He was trampled to death on an elephant hunt 2 years after I went, but his wife was still arranging to move the company.
It was an awsome trip and was extremely enlightening, but I sure as FUCK would not be moving to South Africa in the next decade or two...