Word from the Owner David Perez

We have been quite busy the past few months. At the lodge, we were almost back to the same amount of clients as 2008. This is mainly thanks to our repeat clients. It is nice to see the same names every year – Fowler, McClinton, Bindslev, Townsend, Lange, Ruiz, Cohn and many more! Muchas gracias!

Thanks to this success we were able to buy a lodge from one of our competitors Manuel Lainez, who pioneered Cordoba dove hunting. This new lodge Posta del Norte will be geared for private groups. So if you have a smaller group of 4-6 and wish to have the whole lodge, please inquire about Posta!

Regarding events outside the lodge, I was able to attend the World Cup in South Africa. It was truly a memorable experience even though Argentina was not able to bring the Cup home. I wanted to send a special thanks to Johan Calitz and Ron Crous for hosting me on an elephant hunt and to Camp Jabulani. This is the nicest lodge I have ever stayed at and is the inspiration for some future changes at the lodge!

SHOOTING UPDATE From Alex Mitri

The best news is the early rains this year. Instead of suffering through a long dry spell, we had some nice rains in September which is unusual. This is perfect for the sunflower planting as it gives us time to spread out the plantings over 3 months. In the past 2 years, we had to wait until the last minute to plant sunflowers. Please note our sunflower season is January through March and is a sight to see!

Martin has been busy working on his latest project, which is a 1,300 acre field directly behind Los Chanares. By developing this property we continue to secure fields that are 5-10 minutes from the lodge, a unique feature in Cordoba! In the last three months, we also had many more European clients from the UK, Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Austria and Spain who very much enjoyed the high birds.

My favorite comment over the past few months was from Richard Light from Australia – “We had the toughest shooting day I have had there in the four years I have been making the trip, overcast and high winds, making it challenging, but still managed to shoot my best on that day – 2002 birds!”

Latest and Greatest Improvement

We bought a brand new Toyota Hilux, which continues our strategy of changing trucks every 3 years. Trucks are quite expensive in Argentina these days so lets go onto the next improvement before I change my mind and return the truck.

The next improvement is quite simple, but many clients have found Martin’s new patterning board quite useful. Basically it is a patterning board we built near the lodge that shows how you are shooting and how the shot is patterning the pellets around the target (dove). The shooting range is 10, 20, 30 and 35 meters.

Featured Employee of the Month

As sunflower season is approaching, Ronnie Crous from South Africa will be the featured employee of the month. Ronnie is a professional hunter in Botswana who has come to visit us for the past eight years. Ronnie comes for one month to basically help Alex host groups. He is especially helpful in the field assisting clients with their shooting! In the past couple of years, Ronnie has even learned to use the Internet at the lodge. Sorry Ronnie, I can’t help it. I like making fun of you in person and even better in our newsletter.

Ronnie was born in South Africa and lives in Maun, Botswana with his wonderful wife Hilary who has come to the lodge on several occasions. He has two sons Danny and Robin who will be spending February at Los Chanares. Ronnie currently works at Johan Calitz Hunting Safaris offering Big Game hunting safaris, specialising in big Botswana trophy tuskers, buffalo and plains game in the Chobe areas and the Okavango Delta.

Frequently Asked Question

Are there any new flights to Cordoba? Yes! We have new direct flights from Madrid on Iberia, which is the best way to come from anywhere in Europe. We have a relatively new flight from Lima on LAN. This will be useful for people coming from the west coast since there are direct flights from San Francisco and Los Angeles to Lima. Plus the arrival time of this flight is 7am so you can have an extra morning shooting. It is important to note the best return flight would be to go back through Santiago, Chile because of the flight times. Finally there are rumors a new airline PAL will be flying from Santiago to Cordoba four days a week. We have excellent clients from Chile so hopefully this will be useful for them. As a side note, I was deeply touched by the incredible story about the miners in Chile.

These new flights will be great for our clients. Of course the majority of our clients will continue the usual routes to fly into Santiago, Chile and wait in transit for a flight across the Andes into Cordoba International Airport. Or you can elect to fly from Buenos Aires where you can take a flight into Cordoba from either the international airport (Ezeiza) or the domestic airport (Aeroparque) depending on when you arrive to BA.

Sunflower Season

Sunflower season is quickly approaching. We have limited dates available. Right now we only have one private lodge date left from January 30-February 2 (prime time sunflowers!). Other dates available for smaller groups are January 3-6, 12-15, 18-21, 24-27, February 11-14, 14-17, March 22-25 and 28-31.

I certainly hope you have enjoyed our newsletter, bringing you the latest and greatest on the Los Chanares experience.

Thank you very much for your time and have a Happy Holiday Season!

David Perez

Owner