Bee-you-ti-ful Delta

After an hour’s drive from Maun, we reached the starting point of our Okavango Delta trip. We split up into pairs and a poler approached each pair, introduced themselves, and began to load all our gear into their mokoro (wooden canoe though now most of them are fibreglass).

Poling us and our gear for about 3 hours to an island in the baking hot sun was thirsty work, and the polers would just bend down, scoop out some of the Delta water in their hand and gulp it down. The rest of us tried the Delta water over the next few days but purified it just in case our stomachs reacted to it. It was quite earthy in taste and there were a few small bits of reed floating around in it, but other than that it was perfectly fine.

Our polers took us between and over reeds that would part with the coming of the mokoro. The odd reed would catch you unawares and smack you in the face. Lilies and lily pads covered the surface of the water in some parts, and the lilies would open and close according to the sunlight. Occasionally you’d spot a hippo in one of the larger pools, and hope that it didn’t get any closer. Mosquitos were buzzing around opportunistically and a variety of insects hitched rides on the mekoros or on us.

Helicopters and planes offering scenic flights were flying above us, and we took the opportunity to take a flight at the end of our mokoro trip.

We stayed on the one island for two nights and used it as a base for our game walks and mokoro rides.

The first day we swum in a designated (hippo-free) area in the Delta to cool off

and went on a late afternoon walk. We came across a bull elephant on musth on our own island. From my volunteering experience at Thanda, I know how dangerous bull elephants on musth can be so I was a little apprehensive about being on foot in such close proximity to it (we started out about 80 metres away but ended up about 40 metres away). Luckily he was quite happy just munching on some leaves and bark so he left us alone.

The next day we went for a walk on another island and came across a dazzle of zebras,

hippo, red lechwe, tsessebe, hyena dung, a buffalo skeleton,

elephant footprints, warthogs, an ant lion (one of the Little 5), wildebeest and many birds including storks and rollers.

Coming back from the walk, we had five people in a mokoro and the top of it now came precariously close to the water surface. I began to shake nervously which compounded our problem but to be honest I was more concerned about my camera than about falling out!

A few of us organised for two of the guides to take us fishing and I watched while the others reeled in some small fish on their newly-fashioned fishing lines.

On our last walk, we came across four male elephants browsing

and then watched the sunset at the pool we had fished in. One of the polers was wearing a water lily twined around his head and I couldn’t resist taking some shots which I later sent to him as A4 prints.

By that stage, some hippo had also occupied the area and were popping up and disappearing under the water at different intervals.

 At one point, a hippo surfaced about 15 to 20 metres from us, which sent the polers into a bit of a panic. They all backed away extremely quickly though the mekoros rocked considerably in the process, adding to the drama.

The polers put on a show for us on the last night. There was singing, dancing and lots of games. Some of the men had shoved pillows down their tops and in the back of their pants and danced around the fire. The singing was melodic and reminded me of the incredible singing of the school kids at Thanda. Along with very traditional songs, the polers had made up a song where everything was ‘Bee-you-ti-ful’…  Africa, Delta, hippo, campsite, polers, etc. And that it certainly was. All we could offer them by way of cultural return was some Scottish singing 'The Bonnie Banks o' Loch Lomond' and the 'Boogaloo' but I can definitely say it was much better than performing the ‘hokey pokey’ in Madagascar…

The flight over the Delta in a 7-seater Airvan GA8 really surprised me and I’m glad I also saw it from that perspective. 

I didn’t realise how much land there was and had initially thought it’d mostly be water. We were only about 500 metres above the ground which afforded us spectacular views and the chance to spot wildlife. We saw tonnes of elephant,

two rhino, giraffe, hippo, zebra, red lechwe, tsessebe, and a herd of buffalo. At a few points, the pilot banked more than 45 degrees and Jo and I grabbed onto each other’s wrists, held our breaths and quietly panicked. My heart continued to pound for a minute or two after each bank.

Our drive back from the airport to the campsite was eventful too, as we met a woman who was doing her Masters in Research on donkeys in Botswana. She’d just arrived and was excited by all of the donkeys she saw on the drive back to Maun – to be fair it is the perfect place to study donkeys as there are so many of them. She was upset one was eating out of a rubbish bin and another was getting perilously close to the edge of the road. Whilst donkeys would be interesting, however, I think my interest would lie with one of the wild animals Botswana has to offer – but each to their own.