FROM THE CONGO BASIN TO THE HIGHLANDS OF ETHIOPIA
More Hunting in Africa in the Latter Part of the Twentieth Century
by Steve Christenson
2013 Long Beach, 384pp, color photos, 8.5x11, hardcover
Volume 76 in Safari Press's Classics in African Hunting Series.
1st edn, ltd to 1000 signed, numbered, & slipcased copies.
Sudan, Ethiopia, Central African Republic, and Liberia give new meaning to exotic and difficult safari destinations. If you want to know what it’s really like to battle a stifling rain forest for bongo or a blistering savanna for giant eland or a lofty moorland for mountain nyala, this is your book. Christenson also depicts an unprecedented adventure into the Red Sea Hills for Nubian ibex and a self-guided expedition to “hell on earth” for ultra-rare West African trophies. In the author’s second volume, he tackles the most difficult specialty safaris, and each adventure is described in vivid detail. As Tommy Caruthers noted in his foreword, “I felt as though I was in a surround-sound setting, experiencing the adventures in real-time with all the joy and excitement of each day’s hunt.”
These hunts often come with a price: gaboon vipers, mamba bed mates, killer hordes of ants, ambushes in the Danakil Desert, sabotage by Hadendowa warriors, and marauding poachers from Darfur. You’ll want to find out why legendary Ethiopian professional hunter Thomas Mattanovich called their hunt the most memorable of his illustrious career. Why would the redoubtable Bob Speegle call his safari with Christenson the closest thing he’d ever done to committing suicide? How was that Beth Jones came to be initiated into the secret Sande sorority of Grebo Forest women? Why would Fred Fortier declare, “A rat that size could make for some good stick meat.”
The reader is taken across Africa in search of adventure as the author and his compatriots enjoy the time of their lives. Whether they are unearthing Neolithic artifacts in the Awash Valley, daring a late-night visit to the local Bangui ivory poacher, or masquerading in Arab garb to enter the Omdurman slave market, there is never a dull moment. Hunting in these countries more closely resembles expeditions into the wildest recesses of Africa, and it provided some of the most memorable adventures in the hunters’ lives.
