23rd to 27th September: Botswana, The okavango Delta

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We encountered our easiest border crossing yet as we crossed into Botswana; they even chatted ad laughed with us, rather than the usual 'can't be bothered with these bloody msungos'! After a couple of long drive days, we arrived at the Okavango Delta, a watery wilderness consisting of a vast 15,000-sq-km maze of lagoons, channels and islands. We travelle in pairs by mokoro, a shallow dug out canoe which is poled from a standing position. It looked very precarious as we wobbled onto them, clutching our cameras and willing our bedding not to get too wet! As it turned out Wako, our poler was brilliant; he was able to negociate what seemed like a labyrinthine of waterways as we layed back and relaxed, arriving at our base camp surprisingly not wet at all. We were lucky though, many others were very wet, some even sunk! We basked in the luxury of shade under a giant tree at the camp before erecting the tents for the umteenth time and digging the toilet hole. The rest of the day was spent relaxing, playing cards and swimming in what we later found out was hippo territory! Ok, so now I've walked with lions, swum in hippo infested waters and with crocs (white water rafting in Vic Falls: there I was, paddling away in the water having fallen out of teh boat yet again, when I looked over to the bank only to see a six foot big daddy of a croc staring straight back at me! Not sure I've ever swum so fast but goo thing I did too, after I was pulled back into the boat, I turned around to see it was no longer there...it had swum after me! Think I've finally learnt my lesson: ask what lurks beneath before diving in!) Sorry, bit of a tangent, moving on...

Oh before I do, one more drama...We went for a game walk in the Delta. We'd only been walking for about five minutes when we got charged by a herd of about six elephants! The guide managed to scare them off but not until they were about 4 metres away; elephants have never seemed so big, heavy and fast before!

We spent three days in the Delta in total. I had a go at poling the mokoros, which reminded me of punting in Oxford. Unfortunately, even without the influence of Pimms I wasn't much more successful! Evenings were spent by the fire, playing Trivial Pursuit, toasting marshmellows and singing (I taught them all the Hokey Cokey and the ru-cha-cha version of 'Singing in the Rain' which the Batwana people found hilarious!). On the 27th, it was time to leave so we hopped back into our moroko, with Wako poling this time for a relaxing trip back, stopping only for a herd of elephants drinking from the river.

The Delta was definately one of the highlights of my trip so arriving back in Maun I decided I hadn't had enough and decided to take a scenic flight over the Delta. I was incredibly nervous as we took off in our 6-seater Cesna plane. Clutching the person next to me, palms sweating, I simply loved taking in the spectacular scenery and spotting the wildlife. Even the stunts were brilliant fun - diving up and down, side to side, screaming the whole way. Brilliant!

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Comments

[lilian Beasley]

Great to hear from you
It is good that all is going well. the weather is very wet here at the moment we nearly have our own Okavango Delta. A Cesna is a great way to travel. Keep up the good health and having fun. Love Lilian