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Published: March 18th 2007
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We loved Botswana! After crossing the Namibia/Botswana border we drove most of our first day in the country, arriving into the town of Maun late afternoon for supplies. We then drove about 10mins to our campsite Situtunga, and spent a lazy day in the pool and at the bar.
We headed off at 7am the next morning for our 2 nights/3 days trip to the Okavanga Delta. A company called Delta Rain organised all this, we got taken for an hour or so drive by 4wd through the 18,000km Boro fence line (attempts to separate domestic life/animals from the wild life) and down to a water way where the Makoros were waiting. Makoros are traditional dugout canoes made from the aptly named "sausage tree", and the locals pole these down the waterways of the delta (making it look very easy but in fact when we tried it it definitely takes some practise!). We jumped into the makoros in pairs, got an extra one for the camp gear and were poled down various waterways for an hour and a half, seriously one of the most relaxing ways to travel ever! You are inches away from the crystal clear water of the
delta, only a couple of metres wide at the widest point of our trip and surrounded on both sides by high water weeds. We camped just off the river, right out there in the delta and our 4 "polers" - James, West, Shelley and Lee (Lee being the official guide) made our fire and gathered drinking water right from the delta while we pitched tents and swam in the delta, which is such refreshingly awesome water! This was a real bush camp, with absolutely no ammenities, they're so much fun! The Delta was incredibly hot during the day, so we did all activities early morning or just before dark to maximise the slightly cooler parts of the day. The first evening, Lee took us on a 2 hour walk in a big loop around the campsite, after giving us the old delta 101 class.... if a lion tries to attack - stand still and stare it in the eyes, see a buffalow - run in a zigzag and climb up a tree etc etc.... we got within about 80 metres of heaps of zebra and a huge bull elephant that night.
The following morning we did a 3 hour
walk starting out before sunrise. We went to a hippo pool and saw a couple of them mate (and then fight rather viciously) before plowing through the reeds back to the pool with astonishing velocity! There were heaps of hippos! We got pretty close to them in the pool, we also saw more zebra, elephant, giraffe, jackels, lots of antelopey things on that walk. We spent the day relaxing around camp and playing in the waterways. That evening our polers took us on a sunset makoro ride further along the waterways for about 2 hours, wicked way to travel!
The third day in the delta we went on another game walk starting out before sunrise, just for an hour and half today as we were packing up camp at 8am. We went back to the hippo pool and then on our way back to camp we saw a huge, 6000kg bull elephant about 50metres away from us. We watched it for a while then started to cross in front of it back to camp, getting to about 40 metres away from it. Suddenly it turns quickly towards us, rears up on its front feet, flapping its ears, and this
thing, this close and this huge was pretty terrifying!!! He took 2 steps towards us and we all kinda froze! I know most of the 5 of us were racking our brains back to delta 101 trying to figure out exactly what you did when an elephant decided to charge you.... luckily our guide Lee calmly threw his hands above his head and started clapping these big loud claps and it paused for a second then turned and ambled off in the opposite direction.... phew!
Being out in the Delta was really cool, miles from anywhere, cooking over bonfires, having a multitude of wild animals within a 1-2km radius of your camp the majority of the time, the clear clear water of the delta. Wicked, we really loved this part of the trip and could have stayed out there for ages!
After we got back to our campsite at Situtunga, we went on a flight over the Delta at 4pm, it was awesome to get such a different perspective of where we'd been the last 3 days. We saw LOADS of animals as the plane was a small 6 seater which flew very close to the ground. My
favourite was seeing this lone elephant washing in a waterway, from where we were it just looked so tiny compared to being on our feet in front of one that very morning! It was like roles had been reversed completely and that sight will stay with me forever.
The following day we drove to Kasane, the town closest to Chobe National park. Due to huge rain up in the catchment area for the Zambezi river, the Chobe river is completely flooded, so our campsite was largely under croc and hippo infested water.... the pool was about 50cm under water and particularly attractive to crocs and the bar was open through the back door only (they had to seal the front entrances with concrete) and had to be pumped out every day! Early night that night for an early morning game drive next day.
We were picked up at 5.30am by Chris, our white Botswanan game driver. Drove 8km to the Chobe National park and went on about a 3.5hr drive through the park. Chris was a fountain of knowledge, particularly about dodgy Japanese tourists and unbelievable local remedies from plants including the very scary "abortion plant" (dont ask
the details) but also on wildlife, birds, flora and fauna. Sighted heaps of elephants, impalas, monkeys, baboons and hippos, crocs, buffalo, was a great game drive in a pretty cool park. Also lots of impressive sightings of the majorly flooded river. Got back to camp for a late pancake breakfast and chilled out at camp and running into town for supplies. That evening we went on a 3 hour cruise down Chobe river and this was pretty awesome. Relaxing way to travel on the "open barge type boat" and saw LOADS of animals, all coming to play in or drink from the water's edge. Heaps of elephant, hippos, crocs, birds, impalas, monkeys and baboons, another pretty cool way to see the wildlife in Africa. All the different perspectives so far make it pretty awesome viewing.
The next morning we had a bit of a sleep in (say about 7am....) then packed up camp for our trip through to Zimbabwe.
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