At Seronga, the village we flew into, the fan-shaped Delta emerges, and the waters spill over the Delta, rejuvenating the landscape and creating stunning mosaics of channels, lagoons, ox-bow lakes, flooded grasslands and thousands upon thousands of islands of an endless variety of shapes and sizes. Many of the smaller islands are built by termites! A recent overview of the Okavango records 122 species of mammals, 71 species of fish, 444 species of birds, 64 species of reptiles and 1300 species of flowering plants.
So, our flight from Maun to Seronga took about 45 minutes. Now as most of you know I do not find flying especially fun and was finding it even less fun when I found out our plane was just an 8 seater! However, I did manage to keep my eyes open the whole way well because, to be honest, it was pretty hard not to when the view was so incredible. The pilot didn't fly very high so we even saw some elephants! From Seronga we had an hours car drive to the 'Mokoro station' (simply a meeting point with our 4 polers and 4 mokoros-nothing fancy!). This is the only way to travel along the rivers in the heart of the Delta and the boats are similar to canoes and are now made of fiberglass to avoid the destruction of the trees traditionally used to make the mokoros. We drifted/glided through the water passing hundreds of water lillies to our island where we would be situated for the next 3 nights. It was so so peaceful just watching the dragonflies, hearing the different birds and hippos in the distance.
An hour later we arrived at camp (this one was already set up as it is stationary) and we were warmly welcomed by an African Bull Elephant in his prime-aged 20-25. Over the course of the next 4 days we had many visits from this elephant who we named Benjamin who was adament that this land was his (he came for the marula fruits-a citrus fruit which has 4x more vitamin C in them than oranges!). While he was mostly calm over the 4 days we did have to be a little wary of him as he was very happy to get very close and because he was a male in must (aka very territorial and can get angry very quickly) the guides often had to shout or bang the pots and pans to get him to leave! Luckily the baboons living in the trees above our camp acted as our look outs because everytime we heard their warning call (sounds remarkably like they are shouting the name GEORGE) we knew Benjamin was on his way!
The next few days were incredible. Mornings we got up at 6 and had some rusks and tea/coffee and then headed off for a walk on the island. Our guide told us lots of interesting things about many animals including:
-A hippos call can be heard 7km away
-Termite Queen is the size of your thumb and can live for 50 years!
We saw many animals on these walks including :
-Female elephants and babies!
-Impala
-Warthog
-Hippo Skull and Elephant Skull
We also came across a few male elephants one of which decided to charge at us. Our guide managed to stop him from getting too close by shouting. We then all had to hide behind a tree until he walked off but it was very scary!
Once back from our walks we would cook brunch which consisted of Full English breakfast, various cereals, yoghurts, fruit salad and toast! After this we had a break in the heat of the day until later when we went out on a mokoro ride to watch the sunset and hippos! We got about 20m away from 17 hippos on one evening which was...an experience!
On Day 7 back we went to Maun, taking the same route (1hr mokoro, 1hr car ride, 45 min plane). This time the plane WAS EVEN SMALLER (i swear they were doing it on purpose) and was just a 4 seater plane. Again, and I am rather surpised with myself, I managed to keep my eyes open because he flew even lower this time-about 450 feet up so we saw even more animals. Although about 35 minutes in i could no longer down-I spent the time trying to found the runway instead! With a slightly more bumpy landing than I liked we arrived safe and sound back in Maun.
Here are some of the pictures from the Delta...
Hippo (taken by Malene)
Bejamin (taken by Malene). Just to put things in
perspective-we can easily stand up in the tents!
View from plane
Pilot in the making!
On the way to camp!
On one of the walks-the grass wasn't always this high!
Making brunch!
Evening Mokoro ride
Hippo!
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