Okavango Delta
BOTSWANA
Bush Camping, Anyone?
By AARON
Monday, April 18, 2011
Donning my new sporty shades with the purple flames on the side, we bid adieu to Chobe National Park and headed south towards the city of Maun and the Okavango Delta.
At over 60,000 square kilometers, the Okavango Delta is a wildlife haven and protected site, where the water that comes from the Okavango River all the way in Angola flows into this massive marshland. So after a quick camp at the Delta Rain campsite, and witnessing the owners pop a poisonous snake with 2 buckshots from a 12-gauge, we woke up early the next morning ready for our 3 day, 2 night excursion in the delta.
Our first mission was to load up a truck with everything we would need for the next 3 days, which included tents, food and clothing. Then we hopped on the back of the open air safari truck, all seats facing outward, and rode for 3 hours until we reached one of the inlets of the Okavango Delta. Waiting for us there were our guides for the next 3 days, which included Carlos (the leader), Victor (crazy Coolio hair guy), Peter, Ana and Mr. Rodgers. Well, just “Rodgers”, but if there were ever a Botswanan Mr. Rodgers, he was it.
Already sweating from the overhead sun, we packed our things tightly into mokoros, which are the boats used to navigate the shallow, reedy delta. Made from hollowed out tree trunks, they are hard to balance, harder to steer, and that job is amplified ten-fold once you add a couple of inexperienced mokoro riders (see: tourists) who need to remain motionless in them while the guides make their way through the delta.
Using deft, metronome-like strokes with their large poles, our guides successfully got us to our campsite, about 2 hours from where we had started, not one mokoro overturned or sunk. I say sunk because while Lyndi and I were pimping around in Ana’s new fiberglass mokoro, a couple others in our groups were riding in some older models, and we watched numerous times as their guides, who stood at the back (think of a Venetian gondola) would regularly pull out their Tupperware/tin cup/hand and scoop water out of their respective boat.
Our bush camp was exactly that- no electricity, showers or bathrooms, just a patch of land near the water with a hole to use as a restroom. Oh, and there’s wildlife all around too, so if you wanted to get up close and personal with the wild, this was about as close as you get. Our tour leader, Tanya, told us of one time she was at the camp, and during the day an elephant just decided to mosey on through, making his way to the water for a drink.
After setting up camp, we split up into two groups and went on an evening game walk. Our guide was Peter, who was knowledgeable – and with him in front and Mr. Rodgers bringing up the rear, who wouldn’t feel safe? After about an hour walk and not seeing anything, we were rewarded with two bull elephants that were about 100 yards away. We opted to not get any closer, because this was the wild, and we’re in their territory- not ours, as we would find out in a very scary way the next day.
Next morning Victor (crazy Coolio hair guy) and Mr. Rodgers took us out on our morning game walk. This day proved more successful since we saw warthogs, zebra, giraffes and wildebeest – all in their natural habitat and all fairly up close.
The best viewing/make-me-pee-my-pants experience was when we went to the waterline to view the hippos. Funny as they are with their grunting and fat bodies, they are also very territorial and can and will kill you if they feel you’re encroaching on their land. So what do we decide to do? Not necessarily jump in the water with them, but our guides took us right up to the waterline to see what the hippos were up to. After about 3 minutes, they all started grunting as if communicating to the big daddy of the group, “Hey Big Daddy, how’s about you get these idiots off our land?”
“Okay, watch this” grunted Big Daddy back to the group.
Ever so slowly, Big Daddy started making his way to the shoreline – 50 feet… 40 feet… 30 feet… until he was about 20 feet from us, over half of his gigantic body out of the water. And boy did he not look happy. Tanya was already freaking out a bit, and the rest of us were like “hey Victor, Mr. Rodgers, we’re okay, right?”. They just giggled and stood right where they were. Then, Big Daddy proceeded to do what I can kind of describe as a “fake charge, then jump about 4 feet in the air while roaring (?) and opening up his mouth the full 180 degrees as he splashes back down in the water”. I’ve never seen all of us move so fast, but by the time he was done with his little 3 second tirade, we had all managed to move about 30 feet further away from the waterline.
“Thanks Big Daddy for helping us other hippos out!” cheer the rest of the hippo pod.
“No problem ladies, and I think that one guy with the flames on the side of his sunglasses even needs a new pair of undies!” (laughter and joyful grunts from all the other hippos ensue).
After our run-in with the hippos, we decided to call it quits as it had been about 4 hours by now anyway, so we headed back to camp as Victor pointed out various types of animal feces. If I take one thing from these game walks, it will be that I can now tell you the difference between hippo poo and zebra poo. The guides’ fascination with the stuff is amazing. I don’t know if they just like it, or if on the off chance you don’t see anything, at least you can say “Nope, didn’t see a leopard, but sure as hell saw me some leopard poo, ’bout 12 hours old I reckon”.
Here’s the clincher though – there were some people in our group that would actually photograph the stuff when our guides pointed it out. Yep, imagine that one on your slideshow to friends and family back home: “uh, so here is some elephant dung. Notice how big it is, because, well, uh, elephants are big.” Fascinating.
Back at camp we had the rest of the sun-filled day to relax, read, and enjoy being a part of nature. After about an hour or two, Lyndi got the good idea that we should try and take a mokoro out in the little cove where we were staying. Once we got the okay from the guides and the assurance that Big Daddy and his crew had not followed us here, we jumped in some mokoros and proceeded to go in circles.
Yep, just like our “mzungu corkscrew” at Lake Bunyoni, these things must be made out of the same wood because once again, for the life of all of us, we couldn’t figure out how to navigate these boats. So after about a half hour we headed back in and with a newfound respect for our guides. I, in fact, not only managed to go in circles, but capsize once and flood the mokoro a second time.
Our night was finished off with a beautiful sunset mokoro ride and more sunset photos to add to the already existing 5,679 sunset photos in our computer. Anyone looking for a sunset photo coffee book, you can contact Lyndi or me at our e-mail and we can throw together one so thick it will break the legs of your actual coffee table.
Next morning we went on a sunrise game walk with Carlos, who had become famous for his questions such as “Hey, does anyone know what this is?”
“No Carlos, what is it?”
“I don’t know, that’s why I asked you!”
And who could forget the ever famous, “Hey, where did all the animals go”, which is exactly what we heard on this sunrise walk because aside from a pile of warthog dung, we unfortunately saw nothing.
Back in camp, we packed up our belongings and covered up the “bathroom hole” and hopped in our mokoros back to our pick up point. Gliding through the reeds almost eye level with the water is a truly relaxing experience and despite not seeing anything on our morning walk, we did see two huge elephants near the water on our ride back.
Once back at our pick-up point, we said goodbye to our local guides, handed them a well deserved tip and took the 3 hour truck ride back to Delta Rain Campsite. After a quick shower we were back on the road for an unexpected third night bush camp on the side of the road, followed by the beautiful Etosha National Park.
