21 Days In Africa: A Hunter’s Safari Journal, Daniel J. Donarski, Jr.
daverichey April 9th, 2008
TITLE: 21 Days In Africa: A Hunter’s Safari Journal
AUTHOR: Daniel J. Donarski, Jr.
PUBLISHER: Stackpole Books
CONTACT:
Stackpole Books
5067 Ritter Road
Mechanicsburg, PA 17055
WEBSITE: Stackpole Books
COST: $29.95 +P/H; Hardcover, dust jacket, 220 pages with index, and beautiful color photos throughout
ISBN Number: 978-08117-o288-1
The author, a native of Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, is an active and prolific outdoor writer, and this book is a real-life adventure story that covers Donarski’s experiences while hunting wild African game during a 21-day safari/. The awe of the so-called Dark Continent is evident in each chapter.
There is much more to this book than killing game animals, although it is a hunting book. The author, on his first African hunt, kept meticulous notes. This title is filled almost to overflowing with helpful suggestions about planning a similar hunting trip. He offers tips on bullet and rifle preferences, travel insurance, clothing, and much needed details on pre-safari preparations including physical fitness and how to fill out the numerous forms required for taking firearms and other gear into Africa.
Donarski discusses the fatigue of travel from home, and reveals the fact that unlike other writers who get complimentary hunting trips, he paid full price for his hunt, air travel, hotel rooms, hunting licenses and meals. He compares his experience with those of Robert Ruark, who spent his own money on safaris. Ruark, for those who don’t know, authored Horn Of The Hunter and Use Enough Gun, two very famous African hunting titles by this famous author.
Donarski writes of hunting springbok, oryx, bushbuck, eland, impala, nyala, red hartebeest, reedbuck, wildebeest, and some game. His stirring account of taking a kudu after a long and strenuous hunt is a large part of the hunting in this book, and his big kudu is featured prominently inside and on the front panel of the dust jacket.
His three weeks in South Africa was the beginning of this man’s thrilling love affair with Africa. He writes profoundly, and with great passion, and his words thrill the hunter inside of me. I may never go to Africa, but if I do, I shall read Donarski’s words of wisdom again about what to take, what to expect and how to enjoy the experience.
This is, in addition to being a terrific read by a wonderful writer who can make each experience come alive for the reader, intertwines the fabric of Africa into the human flesh and soul of the hunter. There it will rest until a trip to the Dark Continent unlocks its mysteries and someone else falls in love with that massive continent for all the same reasons it has appealed to hunters for more than 150 years.
