We're in Botswana now hunting again with Global Hunting Resources. We left from Lusaka in Zambia and flew here to Botswana.

We came out here and my PH (professional hunter) I was supposed to have was young guy, Luke Blackbeard of a very famous family, Blackbeard Outfitting, but I found out when I got here that he's not here, the older Blackbeard, Ronnie Blackbeard, will be my PH. He's a very famous famous PH who has been involved in the taking of more than 1,000 elephants. Aaron Neilson is here and shot a huge bull elephant today, the tusks were 53 and 56 pounds.

But I guess there were some problems here with a muzzleloader on a Cape buffalo a few days ago, so when I came in to camp I didn't realize I was walking into this whole big hornet's nest. I said, "Hi I'm Jim," and Ronnie just laced into me that I wasn't supposed to be here and what was I doing here. After about five minutes of that, I went right back at him and told him that he wasn't my first choice as PH either, but we're stuck with each other on a dangerous animal hunt and that this is a heck of a way to start a safari. So we'll see what happens. I think he's just at the end of his rope because of his previous experience with the camera and with the muzzleloader a few days ago.

We'll see what happens, but it's a real, real, real rocky start to this safari, but he is a professional, one of the most famous guides out here in Africa, professional hunters, so I have my fingers crossed that everything is smoothed out. We'll see how it goes. Sometimes in like a lion out like a lamb. Just, I think, he was having a bad day and when he saw another camera show up I think he snapped. We'll see.

The Next Day ...

I think Ronnie's fine. I stayed in camp today and shot my muzzleloader, made sure everything was sighted in properly. Spent a lot of time with Michael Waddell, who is also here. Pretty instinctive young man. Smart guy. Lots of good footage, lots of banter. It's beautiful here. Tomorrow we're going after elephant. They're seeing 10 to 100 bulls a day, so we're going to see some bulls for sure, just looking a for a big one and hoping for a good shot. I think we'll be able to show them that the muzzleloader isn't the problem.

We'll see how it goes!

We're back in North America. Got Todd out of the hospital a couple of days ago. He won't be going to Africa because they're going to keep him under observation for a couple more weeks. He looks fine, though. The plastic surgeon did such a good job with the scars, you can barely see them.


Cameraman Todd Bissenden shortly after his 60-foot fall in Peru. His recovery is going well.

That whitetail hunt in Peru is the toughest whitetail hunt on the planet. I hunted only for two days, saw a couple small spikers and forkhorns, but that was about it. Never did get one.


Whitetail hunting in the Andes Mountains ... toughest whitetail hunt on the planet!

Back in Lima we went out to dinner with all of the top honchos at SCI's new Peru chapter. Also met with the Peru Minister of Agriculture, Rafael Rey, that was really cool in his office there. Had a big fancy dinner then had to run. Back in the saddle for a couple of days and then off to Africa again!

Here are some more pictures from Peru ....


My capybara from the Amazon region of Peru ...


Louise and I at Machu Pichu, one of the seven wonders of the world.


Terraces of the ancient Inca civilizations in Peru.


Might look like domestic cattle, but the feral bulls of Peru are WILD as wild can be. Super spooky and difficult to stalk. Mean-spirited, too ...

Had a big disaster yesterday. We were heading up into the whitetail area out of Cusco, Peru. Drove two hours on gravel roads heading up into the higher country. The roads were getting pretty steep, and we stopped to video down a switchback. Todd, the cameraman, Todd Bissenden, a rock went out underneath him. He wasn't even starting to video yet. It slid, it was like volcanic rock, real slidy. And he went down 60 feet onto the road down below. Hard. He was unconscious.

By the time I got down to him ... he hit twice on the way down rolling. He was totally unconscious. One big rock had cut his whole ear up and then cut into his head, and then on the other side he had a great big gash and also a big cut on his forehead and the skin on his whole face was all scraped away. After about three minutes he started coming around. He didn't know what happened. His first question to me was was the camera OK? Tough, tough, tough kid. If it would have been me, I would have been dead. I didn't know if it was neck or anything broken.

We got him into the back of the truck onto the foam mattresses. And I was washing the blood trying to get as much blood off his face as I could just to see how many gashes and cuts he had. We got him into a little village that just happened to have a doctor and two nurses. We got him all cleaned up after 2 1/2 hours on the table there sewing him up. I don't know how many stitches, 40 anyway, a bunch inside and bunch outside. They only had big horse thread and no novocaine. They ran out; they went through all their materials. So he had to get all stitched up without it and he was in great great pain, but got through it.

Then we got him all the way back into the main town of Cusco and found a private clinic and a doctor who is a neurosurgeon there. They had an MRI, a traumatologist and a plastic surgeon all right there waiting because we radioed. So they took him in and undid all the stitches and re-did them all, got him restitched and MRI. There is a little swelling on the back of the skull, but he's all stabilized and they got iv's into him. He went into shock when we got him there. But he's stabilized now. So I came out this morning again. Louise is staying with him in the hospital. He'll be there for at least another day. When I went back past that spot today I got the heebie jeebies again. And we went about four hours past that.

Sometimes fate works in fine ways. He fell in a spot where it's 60 feet down. Where I've been driving today four hours past there is the worst roads I've ever seen in my life. I can spit 1,000 feet out the window. We made it up to the camp. We're sitting here in top of the Andes Mountains with the horses packed and just about to head off to the spike camp for the whitetail deer. Wish it was better news. But that's the way it us. Just rememeber, it's extreme hunting ...

We drove up in to the incredibly high country here in the Andes in Peru. We dropped the car off at about 4,500 meters, nearly 15,000 feet, and then we hunted upward from there for the wild toro bulls. They're all over this high country here in the Andes. There are bulls that have escaped and cattle that have escaped into the high country. There is no fences, all free range. And spooky as I've seen, spooky as almost any animals that I've ever hunted.

We were after one herd way up there. They got our scent at about 400 yards. They took off even higher, we followed them. I could barely breathe. We were drinking cocoa tea made from cocoa leaves that apparently helps you breathe. We spooked them again, they went higher and farther back into the mountains. And then, finally we had some hunters' luck and they spooked back around and they came back by me and I shot one at about 70 yards.

Nice bull! I think I'm the first North American to hunt these bulls ever. It's quite a popular big game animal here in Peru. The guys were all excited and happy. I was dying. Didn't get altitude sickness, but had a pretty good headache. Felt like you were hung over. Couldn't think straight and stumbling around.

When we got down we went to another little village located in the deepest canyon, Colco, it's twice as deep as the Grand Canyon they say. It's really cool. All of the people in the Andes here are all wearing the same embroidered little dresses and hats. Real traditional, just like you wold imagine Peruvians would wear. Sheep and goats all over the road. The next day we went to the other end of the valley of this big canyon and got above condors, we videotaped condors and then headed off to hunt whitetails.

Stay tuned for more from beautiful Peru!

We're here on the second leg of our hunting adventure in Peru, South America. I'm on a rooftop in the city of Araquipo, it's second-biggest city in Peru. We're going to be heading up to 15,000 feet in elevation in the Andes Mountains hunting for the feral bulls living wild and free up there.

Those bulls are the descendants of the bulls that were used here hundreds of years ago for bull fighting. Word has it that the wild bulls are pretty aggressive, and it's going to be pure adventure hunting these bulls at such high mountain elevations. Different for sure. We'll see! Stay tuned ...