[Rapier]

For some reson I am not getting emails on all of the messages so am late to respond on some.

We shot Perdiez (a large quail type bird with long legs) good eating and some pigeons with mostly doves. Two of us old hands shot a case (old style of 500 shells) in the morning and a case in the afternoon. Both of us had been to the rodeo several times and found that a gentleman in his 60s can do a thousand shells without much trouble. 1500 gets serious and two thousand leaves you exausted for two or three days.

The plane ride was $1,700 RT (Pcola to Dallas to Santaigo to Cordoba), The entry fees, license and permits were $400, The 7 night and 6 day stay was $2,400 with 2,000 shells. Extra shells were $12 per box. But the government is trying to dig in everybody's pocket down south, in every country. I think they are going to kill the golden goose. 10 years ago the fees were $22, now $400. The courts stopped the fee increases, in a suit filed by outfitters, they won. But the govt., is back dooring them, now going after the shells, by adding a tax of X dollars per box. Paraguay just killed every outfitter's business by increasing the shells to $17 and the fees to over $100 per day. Overnight just about every outfitter left Paraguay. Paraguay is a big duck and pigeon hunting destination, or was.

Inflation is killing the working people, over 30% last year alone. Farm land outside Cordoba, just flat cleared dirt, is $7,000 US per hectar which is 2.3 acres. And salaries for workers in Argentina runs between $1,000 to $2,000 per month on average. So it is no longer real cheap.
Best,
Ed