We finally arrived in Maun by 7pm after our death-trap ride and met up with our Safari group – the 10 people we would be spending the next 13 days with.
To put this post into perspective, please keep in mind I was a little cranky when I wrote it. Also, our impressions were somewhat hindered by the amazing animal encounters we had at Etosha National Park in Namibia. Thus, we were comparing everything about our safari experience to the still-fresh memories of Etosha.
Day 1: After the campsite restaurant meal and all the introductions, we retired to our tents for a restful night full of the sounds of Maun’s nature (sounds like donkeys screaming and roosters crowing (for some reason, Maun’s roosters didn’t get the message to crow at dawn so they just exercise their vocal chords throughout the night)).
Day 2: We set off in our open-air, modified truck into the Okavango Delta, from where we were going to take Mokoros further into the delta. Mokoros are traditional wooden boats made out of a tree trunk (usually sausage trees are used for this). They are propelled by a poler – a person who stands in the back of the boat with a huge pole and pushes off with this pole from the shores and the bottom of the canals. These mokoros are like the Venetian gondolas but much less stable, less comfortable and instead of beautiful italian songs, our poler serenaded us with an out of tune version of The Police’s “Don’t Stand So Close To Me.”
Our poler took great pride in his mokoro since it was his work of art. Practically speaking, however, this contraption kept taking in water and was highly unstable. We got into these sinking logs and were poled to our campsite. Thankfully, only one mokoro had sinking problems and had to return to shore to shift weight around.
Delicately navigating our way through the delta in mokoros
That evening, we went on a game walk with the head poler (the same one who poled our mokoro) as the guide. For 2 hours, we walked through high grass catching thorns all over our clothes. The only things we saw were three rare antelopes called sitatungas but they were so far away, we could barely make out their horns and an elephant in the distance, behind a lot of shrubs. The guide kept stopping to pick up and show us different types of animal poop. “This here is Buffalo” he would say, picking up part of a fairly fresh pile and mushing it in his hands, offering to us as if it was a delicious delicacy. “This here is Elephant Dung, but it is old”, he would say picking up the giant turd and tossing it aside, disappointed. He would also stop once in awhile when he felt people were getting antsy from not seeing animals and give us lengthy, misinformed lectures on the different animals we weren’t seeing (an elephant, according to him eats 3 kilos of plants per day – this is actually closer to 200-300 kilos). By the end of the two hours, I wanted to kill him and set the entire delta on fire for not being more cooperative and showing us its animals and leaving me with hours of dethorning to do. Our guide was ironically named Heaven.
Day3: The day started with another one of Heaven’s wonderful walks. This time, though, we had better luck and saw an elephant’s butt from afar and 2 lions walking in the distance. I also spotted a hyena with a rabbit in its mouth but it quickly ran off when it heard us coming. That afternoon, we went on a more pleasurable mokoro ride – pleasurable because the mokoros weren’t overloaded with our stuff and held up in the water quite well. This ride took us through the beautiful channels of the delta, with lilies and low hanging grass around, to the hippo pool, where we saw a ton of hippo eyes and ears sticking out of the water. Unfortunately, the hippos didn’t feel like displaying any other body parts for us so we mokoro-ed back to our camp at sunset – beautiful!
Day 4: The group went on another morning game walk while I stayed back and helped to take down the camp as I didn’t want to end up in a Botswanian jail in case I couldn’t control my urge to kill Heaven and use him as bait to attract the lions on the walk. I didn’t miss much as the group didn’t have much luck and didn’t see any animals.
We left the Okavango after being mokoro-ed back from camp and driven back to Maun to overnight and prepare for the next 5 days in the bush. That afternoon, we took a scenic flight over the Okavango Delta. It looked gorgeous in the afternoon light and not even the pictures can do it justice.
Getting ready for our flight over the delta (good thing they gave us the "big" plane that could seat a whopping 13 passengers!)
View from the plane over the flooded delta
Day 5: We drove in our open-air safari vehicle, with dust in our faces from the dirt roads, to Moremi game reserve – a private part of the Okavango Delta. There would be no more game walks – only game drives as the parks do not allow people out of vehicles except at designated campsites.
Pausing for a stretch during one of our game drives
We spent 2 days in Moremi, going on long game drives in the mornings and evenings but saw nothing but impalas, mongoose and a few giraffe (Jim and I were really hoping to see the predators!). The highlight of Moremi was the camp volleyball tournament we created to keep ourselves occupied between the game drives. A fellow safarier bought a ball in Maun and we improvised on the making of the net, using rope, sticks, cars, spare tires and clothes. The Flying Elephants (my team) triumphed over The Weak Impalas (Jim’s team) in the two day tournament!
Day 7: Yesterday, we drove from Moremi to Savute, passing over the African “Bridge Over River Khwai” on the way. Savute is an area of Chobe National Park that used to be a lake thousands of years ago. The lake dried out because the earth shifted such that it cut off the river supplying this lake with water. Now, the terrain is home to many animals. The 7 hour drive yielded numerous elephant sightings.
Day 8: This morning, we finally had a lot of luck and found a pack of wild dogs (a highly rare sighting because they are elusive and endangered) on a killed impala – very cool. Hopefully our luck with the predators has finally turned and we’ll see more of them (we’re praying for leopards and lions and hyenas!!!) in the next couple of days!
African wild dogs are one of the most endangered carnivores in Africa.
-Veronica
P.S. If you haven’t already checked them out, we updated the Sossusvlei post with pictures. Take a look!
