Day 203 - 500 elephants spotted from the air

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The town of Maun, and in fact the whole of Botswana's tourism industry, owes a lot to the Okavango Delta. The Okavango River starts in Angola, crosses the Caprivi Strip in north-eastern Namibia and eventually empties itself in what's called the Okavango Delta. The Kalahari is next door, so all this water attracts a lot of wildlife. We had the option of a 2 night/3day excursion into the delta, travelling by traditional pole-driven canoes called Makoros. For one reason or another, including the attraction of a bit of peace and quiet whilst the majority of our group went off on the excursion, we decided to remain at the campsite and take a closer look at Maun.

So early in the morning we waved goodbye to most of our new friends before enjoying our first leisurely breakfast in a while. The theme for most of the day was in-action, and we sat around chatting with the handful of people who'd felt the same as us, read our books a bit and then drove to the airstrip for a late-afternoon scenic flight. 5 of us had split the $300 cost of a plane for a 45 minute flight over the delta. This was an excellent idea, and we got the pilot to buzz over our friends' campsite which was barely in the delta. Further vindicating our decision. We only recognized one of them, wandering aimlessly by himself which is all this particular person ever does. We saw perhaps 500 elephants from the air and plenty of hippos. The delta was a vast, flat expanse of green, sometimes river, sometimes swamp and surprisingly often dry land. The pilot even took time for some mild aerobatics which was great fun for us although perhaps less so for one of our friends, Dave, who crews Australian army helicopters for a living.

In the evening the gods were initially looking down kindly on us - after a delicious dinner due to the smaller size of the group, we then got to the bar just as Man City vs Blackburn kicked off live on the telly. Those same gods must then have been distracted because CITY somehow lost 3-0.

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