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Cameroon |
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The highest-scoring animal was the red-flank duiker, ranked
number 11....
There are many reasons for being a member of the Alabama
Chapter of Safari Club International, but to me one of the
best things is learning about new and exciting adventures,
either through hunting reports in this publication, presentations
at Chapter meetings, or reading the literature that accompanies
hunts donated for our annual banquet. At the 2002 annual
banquet, while looking through the silent auction items,
I came across a hunt to Cameroon donated by Antonio Reguera,
owner of Mayo Oldiri Camp Safaris. I asked my wife Diann
if she would like to go to Cameroon. Without hesitation
she said yes and the bid was on. Even though there were
others who made bids, at auction’s end, the trip was ours.
After that evening until our departure in February of 2003,
we were in email contact with Raquel, Antonio’s daughter
who serves as the booking agent, and talked with both Antonio
and Raquel at the 2002 and 2003 SCI conventions. In addition,
at the 2003 convention, we met Elisa, the camp manager.
They promised us they would do everything to make our trip
smooth, memorable, and successful, and we can happily say
that they did just that.
A warning to anyone who might be considering a future stopover
in Paris. Since out flight itinerary took us from Atlanta
to Paris to Cameroon, we decided to stopover in Paris for
a couple of days. If you ever find yourself flying through
Paris and think about staying over, one word of advice -
DON’T.
First, after we had booked our flights and hotels, we learned
that France had changed its laws about importing guns into
their country. Now, the only way to bring a gun into the
country is to have a letter of authorization from a French
hunting concession. We contacted the French Embassy in Washington,
the French Consulate in Atlanta, the Charles de Gualle airport,
and the airlines, and none of them offered any kind of help
or made any suggestions for us. We already knew that the
hunting camp did not keep rifles for clients’ use. To say
we were in an awful quandary is an extreme understatement.
Fortunately, Antonio came to our rescue and saved the trip
for us.
A friend of his was going to be in camp right before our
trip and was going to have Antonio’s personal gun. Antonio
said that he would make arrangements for the friend to leave
the gun in camp for me to use. The second downside is that
a break in airline flights means that your luggage is no
longer considered to be coming from the US in international
status (70 pound allowance) but is considered as originating
in France (23 kilogram limit). Air France wanted to charge
us over $400 for excess weight. Diann asked wouldn’t it
be cheaper just to buy our luggage a coach-class ticket.
Fortunately the agent had a sense of humor and a sense of
fair play as she finally agreed that it would be unfair
to charge us anything. The fact that an extremely long line
of waiting passengers had occurred because of a breakdown
in the baggage transport belt and we were holding up the
line helped quite a bit!
But, enough of the bad stuff - on to the hunt! Upon our
arrival in Douala, we were met by a Mayo Oldiri representative,
who took very good care of us, both in our arrival to Douala
and when we came back through on our way home. He handled
all of our baggage, took us to a very nice hotel and stayed
until we were checked in, took us to a local market the
next morning, and then to the airport for our flight to
Garoua. He also kept the souvenirs we had purchased until
we returned and made getting through Customs and Security
very easy. Elisa met us at Garoua and we then made the four-hour
drive to camp. Even though it was extremely late when we
arrived, everyone got up to greet us, and we were served
a delicious meal of Cob steaks.
At daylight, Darren, our PH, met us and we were off to see
the country and start the hunt. Game was plentiful. During
our ride-abouts of the camp we saw Western hartebeest, Sing-sing
waterbuck, Nigerian Bohor reedbuck, Western cob, harnessed
bushbuck, Western bush duiker, red-flanked duiker, oribi,
Western roan, Northwestern buffalo, warthog, baboon, Colebus
monkeys, and many others. There were other animals that
we, unfortunately, did not get to see: elephants (however,
we saw a lot of fresh elephant sign), lion, leopards walking
through camp, and hippopotamus in the river by camp, although
we saw hippo tracks in the sand and heard their nightly
serenades.
During our seven-day stay, we would hunt in the mornings
and late afternoons, with several fishing trips for good
measure and good fun. Mid-day meant naptime, staying inside,
or at least in a shady spot as it got up to 127° F. I collected
five animals - harnessed bushbuck, oribi, red-flank duiker,
Western cob, and Bohor reedbuck. All but the oribi, which
seldom reach record-book size in Cameroon, make the SCI
record book. The highest-scoring animal was the red-flank
duiker, ranked number 11 in the current record book, but
the best trophy was the harnessed bushbuck, that was so
old that the ridges had been worn off his horns.
All aspects of this hunt were above our expectations, and
our thanks go out to Antonio and Raquel for their great
donation to our club. They, along with Elisa and Darren,
made this trip so enjoyable that we were very excited to
learn that they had donated a Cameroon Forest hunt to our
chapter for this year’s banquet … and even more excited
when we won the auction for it! Antonio and Raquel have
done a lot to support our SCI chapter and National SCI as
well. They treated us like royalty and have our greatest
appreciation.
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