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Thanks to Shannon (sister Shannon that is) mostly as well as a few shots from Shannon (girlfriend Shannon) and myself, we ended up with a huge pile of pictures from our recent trip to Southern Africa. Below are the links to those pictures.

I am going to write another couple posts about our time in Africa. There is so much to talk about… why I hunt and the ethics of hunting, the crisis in Zimbabwe, the violence/rioting in South Africa, REAL racism, and more. I want to post on all these topics. But before we get into the “deep” discussions about Africa, lets have a bit of fun with the pictures we took!

So for those that may not know, we spent just over three weeks in Southern Africa. Most of this time was spent in South Africa but we also spent time in Zimbabwe and are least able to officially claim we have been to Botswana and Zambia as well. Africa is a place of immense beauty, a place where nature is raw and real in a way that is hard describe… even if you have been to Yellowstone and Alaska. Pictures do the place little justice, but we did our best.

So, here are some links to the pictures we took. In total, we took about 2000 pictures. I deleted the really terrible ones and managed to get down about 1200. From there I have done my best to find a smaller set of representative photos. I ultimately got down to a set of 245 photos from the “non-hunting” portion of our trip (which included time in a South African bush camp in Madikwe Game Reserve; our visit to Sun City, South Africa; and our trip to Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe. Here is the link to the Flickr “collection” of these photos, which is separated out into three “sets” in accordance with these areas:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/dzvette53/collections/72157605564592921/

There are no hunting photos in that collection. For those interested, here is a link to the hunting photos on a separate site:

http://picasaweb.google.com/dan.zitting/HuntingInTheLimpopoSpring2008

Finally, those that may be interested in more pictures (though they don’t have captions explaining them, you can check them out here:

http://picasaweb.google.com/dan.zitting

Enjoy!

It is today that with a heavy heart I can say that Dr. Ron Paul is officially ending his campaign for the presidency of the United States. While it is quite literally painful for me to see him go and leave only a sad choice of two candidates who, when you really push aside the superficial and the difference in party affiliation, offer no real change for America, I am proud to say that Dr. Paul cured my apathy.

I feel like prior to the Ron Paul campaign I was nothing but a disenfranchised American youth who was actually (at least to some degree) laughed at if I were to sound my TRUE political beliefs. A long time registered Republican who felt totally betrayed by “his” party and looking for a group to associate with (perhaps the “red-headed step child” of current American politics, the Libertarians). Dr. Paul changed this for me. I am not a republican or a libertarian or any other bullshit term the political establishment would like to assign to me. I am an American that devoutly believes in freedom, personal liberty, the constitution, and the vision the founders of the United States of America laid out for us all those years ago. And guess what… I am not alone. There are millions of me. There millions of us, from all across the political spectrum. There are millions of us, from all across the racial, gender, and religious spectrum. We are easily the most diverse and yet most homogenous group making noise in politics today. And we are getting loud.

Thanks to the Ron Paul campaign we have united and we have a voice. We can raise millions of dollars any given day. We can get the mass media to talk about us, no matter how badly they wish they could exclude us from the conversation. We even garner the vocal support of non-Americans all over the world via the internet who plead with America to mind its own business and disengage in nation building.

The democrats’ nomination process was perhaps the most painful thing I have ever been through. The republicans’ nomination process managed to take someone I once thought really had backbone and was a true patriot and turned him into another religious, nation-building, freedom-infringing nut. Yet no matter how terrible this presidential campaign gets, I don’t care. I will not become apathetic like last time. I am not yet sure if I actually care who wins, since there really are no major differences between them (other than race and age, the only two things anyone seems to care to talk about).

There is one campaign though that will offer “Change we can believe in”. It mostly certainly is not that of Barack Obama but rather the Campaign for Liberty. The Campaign for Liberty is Dr. Paul’s effort to turn the ground gained as a result of his presidential campaign into long term results. The presidential campaign launched a rEVOLution, the Campaign Liberty is what will make it really happen. I SINCERELY encourage everyone onboard with me to go to http://www.campaignforliberty.com/ and sign up. I already have.

“In the final analysis,” Dr. Paul wrote in his new book The Revolution: A Manifesto (a MUST read), “the last line of defense in support of freedom and the Constitution consists of the people themselves. If the people want to be free, if they want to lift themselves out from underneath a state apparatus that threatens their liberties, squanders their resources on needless wars, destroys the value of their dollar, and spews forth endless propaganda about how indispensable it is and how lost we would all be without it, there is no force that can stop them.”

To quote Dr. Paul: “Our time has come to act on these words. May future generations look back on our work and say that these were men and women who, in a moment of great crisis, stood up to their politicians, the opinion-makers, and the establishment, and saved their country.”

My apathy is gone. It is time to fight. Thank you Dr. Paul for starting the rEVOLution, I promise I will help see it through to the end. For liberty!

So for a bit of background, every time I have been to Africa and Asia, I have taken a minimum number of preparatory medications and inoculations. Usually what happens is, whoever it is in the party that took all the suggested crap got sick while my body never seems to care what continent I am on. So this time to Africa was no different and of course it followed with me having to listen to everyone else about how stupid I am for not taking malaria pills (even the story of the people we met who lived in the “malaria zone” we were in for 8 years with no pills while everyone’s malaria pills were causing them to have terrible stomach issues didn’t seem to help).

Well, it finally happened. I got sick. I haven’t gotten sick from anything in probably 15 years but it happened. I (as well as two of the other guys we went with) got a tick bite that resulted in tick bite fever. The lucky guy was the one who came down with the symptoms while he was still in South Africa. All he had to do was go to the doc there in South Africa, get some anti-biotics, and done. In my case, I got home before the tick bite fever set in. So, I went to my doctor, a real nice guy, and told him I thought I had Afrcian Tick Bite Fever and needed some antibiotics to get right again. Well, instead I sat and listened to this big line of what I can best refer to as “medicalese bullshit” that was basically a bunch of clinical talk I couldn’t understand other than that he thought I had a spider bite rather than a tick bite. Well hell… he is the doc right? So I take the prescription he writes and go home to start taking it. By the next morning I feel like complete hell and have broken out with what looks like a case of the adult chicken pocks. I go back the next morning. Doc agrees that wasn’t what was supposed to happen so he calls Dr. Whoever that was one of Denver’s experts in infectious diseases from Africa. He explains the situation and the infectious disease doc tells him that (SURPRISE) it is African Tick Bite Fever caused by a TICK. I am accordingly prescribed the appropriate anti-biotic and two pills later feel 100%. Talk about “practicing” medicine, what a waste of time… should have just let my body fight off. I would have saved like $250 worth of doctor visits, two prescriptions, and a bunch of hassle.

OUTSIDE OF TICK BITE FEVER HOWEVER, Southern Africa once again proved to be among the coolest places I know of on the planet. We spent two and a half weeks in South Africa and then about 3 days in Zimbabwe. We managed to land right on top of the first widespread rioting and violence in South Africa in many years as well as the CRAZY election situation in Zimbabwe and I loved every bloody minute. Anyway, pictures and more blog posts to come about the trip! In the meantime here is the quick highlight timeline:

1. Dan, Chuck, and Sister Shannon spend twelve days hunting in the Limpopo province. We did awesome including shooting a beautiful trophy big bull Cape Buffalo, hands down the best hunting species I have ever experienced.
2. Girlfriend Shannon and Pat arrive and we spend three days in Sun City relaxing. Activities included an elephant-back ride on the edge of Pilanesburgh National Park.
3. The group heads to Mosethla Bush Camp for three days. 3 days of game viewing and sleeping among the lions and elephants and giraffes. We saw piles of amazing game but the climax was the last day when a mother elephant decided to charge our truck!
4. All fly up to Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe. Vic Falls itself was the highlight but a canoe trip among the hippos and crocs as well as the general experience of being in a place that is facing the utter crisis Zimbabwe is facing were a pair of “close seconds”