Nata Lodge to Okovango Delta
October 14, 2000
On the Road
I couldn't sleep (paranoia again), so I got up around 5:00 am and took a
shower before breakfast. Afterwards I sat with the others around our truck and had a
nice bacon-and-egg breakfast. After washing our dishes, dismantling our tents and
packing up, we headed off to the Okovango Delta.
As we drove, I thought about how amazingly *empty* this country was: once you get away
from the big cities there are not many people around. But it's not precisely poor,
either: we drove past what I would consider shantytowns, and commented to Jan about
this. However, he pointed out (and I saw when I took a closer look), that even the
small corrugated iron buildings had T.V. antennas and solar-powered water heaters.
In a village consisting mostly of traditional African huts (not unlike those I saw at
Lesedi), there were guys in suits everywhere, talking on their cell phones. And in
the middle of a small town in the middle of nowhere, there
was a Woolworth's! It was an interesting mix of the traditional and the modern.
We stopped off about an hour outside
Okovango to pick up groceries and water (at least 5 liters!) for the two days we
would spend in the delta: I took the opportunity to try out a burger at the local fast
food place (no, not a McDonald's: it was called "Steers"). The burger had
a much different flavor than what I was used to, but it wasn't bad at all!
Into the Okovango Delta
When we reached the Okovango Delta, we transferred into a different truck
and drove deep into the park, where we met up with our guides for the two day trip.
Access to our campsite was only available through mokoros, which are long thin boats
carved out of a single trunk of wood. It takes three men three months to make a
mokoro. There were about thirteen boats ready to take us and our gear. We
carefully climbed into the boats (two people per boat) and watched with apprehension as
they sank so that they only sat inches out of the water!
Mokoros are guided gondola-style, with the gondolier in the back pushing
the boat along with a long stick. The ride to our campsite was nice and relaxing: I
chatted with Susanna (who was in my mokoro), and enjoyed the view. She talked about
how expensive the trip into the Okovango is getting: apparently soon it may be too
expensive for Contiki to continue to make it part of the tour ($400-$500 just to enter the
park!), which would be a pity.
The mokoros proved more stable than I thought, although Susanna warned me
not to make too many "adjustments": it would be easy to confuse the gondolier
and capsize! Fortunately only one boat actually got waterlogged: and after a little
bailing they were able to continue on to camp.
Bushwalkers
After about fifteen minutes we reached our campsite and setup our tents. Our guides had to dig our
"bathroom" (a couple of pits back behind some bushes!) and cut down some fallen
trees: apparently some elephants had come through recently and smashed down the trees!
Afterwards, we took a short bushwalk to get oriented and see what game was around.
Our guide was a bit of a character: as we walked he pointed out various
reeds, which he called "reeds", cranes which he called "cranes", and
elephant shit, which he called "elephant shit". Not the most descriptive
guy in the world. He was also missing his front teeth, so I didn't
bother him about it (in case *my* front teeth decided to go missing, too. :-)
(In all fairness, I think his English was poor. It was certainly better
than my Afrikaans!)
We did have a bit of luck: one of the other guides spotted an elephant, so we very carefully crept up to get
a better look. We couldn't make too much noise: the elephants have been known to
charge people if startled. Susanna told us a story about a couple of guys at
Victoria Falls who startled an elephant, which charged them but ultimately ended up
charging her when she tried to get them out of harms way! You don't want to fool
around with elephants, unless you'd like to be a dark smear somewhere.
That evening after dinner, Susanna got
us playing a game: others write a name of a person on a piece of tape and stick it to your
forehead. Then you have to ask questions to try and determine who you are.
"Joan of Arc" and "Goofy" were among the names: some were more
appropriate than others. :-) I took forever to get mine: they had put the name of
"Bob Marley" on my piece of tape, and I didn't know who that was!
