The Tour - Part 5: Okavango

After Chobe another long drive to capital city Maun. When we arrived, we were pretty much the only ones there, so could pick and choose the best spot. However, little did we know that the 50 singing Christians would pitch camp right next to us, keeping us up late and waking us up early ;( We had our first traditional South African meal - potjie

Next day, Marc got his timings slightly wrong, and Evelyn wasn’t too thrilled to have missed out on an hour’s treasured sleep!! But at least we weren’t the last ones to pack up for once ;)

We had what can only be described as a military troop carrier take us to the Okavango Delta to meet our guides for the next two days. Sam is our poler, who luckily enough owns a fiberglass mokoro (canoe) whereas some of the others got the wooden ones (made from sausage tree) which leak a bit ;) After about 2 ½ hrs mokoroing through the reeds and a couple of sightings of wildlife – elephant, zebra and birds (where Marc almost tipped us over by standing up too quickly) It was quite a trick to figure out the best way to sit in order for the reeds not to whip you in the face but lucky enough for Marc, Evelyn sat in the front ;)



Just before we reached our island there was a herd of zebra crossing the water which sounded like a mixture of drums and galloping. We finally reach our island (called Nuquaneere, which means “your mother will cry” because it is so far away from home) and set up camp before going for a swim in the hippo watering hole. Marc bought a football for us to play with which the guides went crazy for.

After a chilled afternoon we went on a bush safari walk. Sisko (our bush guide) gave us a bit of an intro to the bushes and what to do if you encounter:
Elephant – run in a zigzag sprint
Rhino, Buffalo – climb a strong tree (not many of these around)
Lion - stand still and look directly at it and pray ;)
Snake - slowly retreat, no sudden movements

So, now that he got us well and scared, Belinda in particular, we went for our 2 hour bush safari walk. We saw zebra, blue wildebeest, impala, warthog and lots of poo. We got to know our animal crap very well as Sisko kept picking it up and telling us about the different kinds and how old it was eg. male giraffe has round and pointy poo. Interestingly, burning elephant dung is a good mozzi repellent !! We also came across the famed Boabab tree which is known as the upside down tree and is huge.



During the night we woke to hear something in the water by our campsite only to find out the next morning that it was an elephant!

Next day we went for a 4 hr walk and saw elephant, giraffe, ostriches, buck and a baobab tree and more poo. We came across an elephant skeleton which was interesting. Went for a swim in the afternoon to clean as it’s pretty much just bush round here. We then went in search for hippos in the mokoros and came across some in a watering hole - they saw us so it was time to get out of there. We could hear them in the water along the side of us which was pretty scary as they can be vicious. Finally loose them and a large colorful spider fell into the boat by Evelyn, who almost tipped the boat. After recovering from the shock we stopped off to see the sunset from the mokoros over the delta, which was just beautiful.



We made sure there was a big fire that night to scare the animals away. We had a fun night full of games with the polers and Marc tried to lead in “God save our Queen” which was pretty dismal as none of us knew the words - Marc thinks he has the body and looks of Justin Trousersnake but is definitely not blessed with the voice ;)

That night we heard hyena, and some zebra crossed the water by our camp, the frogs weren’t as loud due to the fire but still a bit scary camping in the middle of Africa about 40k from the nearest village.

The next morning we did another walk and came across a buffalo skeleton and back at camp we heard a thudding noise only to realize that an elephant was bashing a palm tree to get the fruit down. Quite funny to watch as all you see is this big tree shaking in the distance.

Time came to pack up to get back to civilization and a shower!!

Once we reached the meeting point NZ guides Gary and Clive picked us up and asked if we were dying for an ice cold beer…. Woohoo the guys faces lit up and out come the cold bevies. Quite a difference to the delta boiled water.

Later in the afternoon we were crazy enough to do a ½ hour flight over the delta to see where we had been. The plane was a tiny 6 seater (incl. pilot) and made Evelyn feel very ill. We saw some wildlife and the meeting point for the polers. Overall we were glad to be back on the ground…