Today we packed up everything (tents, food, chairs, cooking equipment, personal gear) and moved it across the campground to the dock where we loaded it onto speedboats along with ourselves for the trip into the Okavango Delta. The speedboats took us to a small village (30 minute ride) located at the edge of the Okavango Delta Nature Reserve where we again moved our stuff onto small local boats known as mokoros. The local villagers own the boats and "poll" us (push us through the reeds and waterways using poles) to our final destination in the Delta which took approximately 1½ hours.
We arrived at our destination at around 1:30, set up our tents, had a light lunch and then headed off to a swimming hole with our guides. The guides are always with us, for safety reasons, when we leave the main camp. When we arrived at the swimming hole we found it occupied by a small family of elephants. They were having a ball jumping on each other and playing around. Needless to say, we had to modify our plans and opt for a smaller swimming hole well away from the elephants.
Later in the day, while having supper, we spotted a small group of elephants (3-4) coming ashore near our camp. I thought to myself, this is only the first day out here; man, what are we in for. Anyway, back to the elephants. The elephants came ashore about 50 meters from our camp and proceeded to scrounge around in the trees adjacent to our campsite. Now, earlier in the day the guides designated an area in the trees as our toilet in which they dug a couple of holes for us to do our thing in. It turned out that the elephants were rummaging around in our toilet so we had to hold on until they left. About 30-45 minutes later, the elephants did leave and several of us lined up to once again make use of the toilets.
The next day we headed out on a 4-hour walking tour. This is totally awesome, here we are walking around this island where lions and other wild creatures are known to live, without any protection other than what our guides told us to do when confronted with some of the more dangerous animals. In the case of lions, we are simply supposed to stare at them until they leave. Something tells me that that may be a bit of a challenge. As it turns out we spotted only a few species of antelope and a wildebeest.
Again, in the early afternoon with temperatures hovering around 40 C, we headed back to the swimming hole to cool down. This time we had it all to ourselves. Later in the evening, after supper, the pollers took us by mokoros to a known hippo pool. We were all disappointed to find that the hippos, who were there a couple of days before we arrived, had moved on. Later in the evening, the guides, porters and some of their family members, who tagged along, entertained us with singing and dancing. They made us get up and dance to a couple of their songs. All in all, we had a great time.
The next morning we packed all our stuff and headed back to civilization. The whole process was the reverse of going into the Delta. Upon our arrival to civilization, we loaded everything into our truck and headed off to our next stop.
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| Swimming in Reeds |
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| Lily Pad Hat |
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| Elephants in our Toilet |
Wow, that's quite the sunburn. juan
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