Thursday morning on Hanne’s birthday we left around 8h with a big 4×4 to the Okavango River Lodge where a motorboat was waiting for us to bring us to the boat point from where all the mokoros leave. Around 9h we stepped in our mokoros. It was us and a married couple from the United Kingdom, Nick and Aisha. Because me and Nick were heavier than the girls we had to take a bit of a stronger mokoro, but that was fine as we were going to the same island.
The Okavango Delta is very beautiful, just the water and the reeds alone, and also the wildlife around the delta. It’s just amazing travelling by a mokoro because it is so quiet and peaceful. The only thing you hear is the water, birds and the hippos making noise. Your main focus here is purely nature. As the delta is full of hippos that can attack a mokoro, they only go through shallow water and through the reeds. After 30 minutes you’re just completely covered in dust, insect and spiders. On our way to the campsite we saw a big hippo sleeping in the sun where we were able to get out of the mokoro to have a really close view of the hippo.
The delta contains thousands of small islands and our polers just picked out a random island where none of the other polers were going to. They didn’t want to go an island where mokoro groups were going as the wildlife tends to hide when there’s too much people/noise. It’s really like camping on a deserted island. The guides started a fire and dug a hole which we could use as a toilet while we pitched up our tents and at some lunch. Around 16h30 we left for a nice game walk. We didn’t see much because there were lions nearby and the animals move away from the lions. But we saw something very rare, a Pangolin, which is some kind of ant eater. Our guide was so impressed and told us this was the best thing we could ever see. It even brings luck! Later on we even heard that we are the first tourist group in Botswana that ever saw a Pangolin. If that isn’t something!
In the evening we sat by the campfire, sang for Hanne’s birthday and grilled some tender meat. A few drinks later we went to bed as it was getting quite cold. During the night you could hear the lions and the hyenas howl. We had to keep the fire going the whole night because this keeps the animals away.
The next morning we left for a big game walk on the island. We tried to track the lions as there were footprints all over the island. Unfortunately we couldn’t find them but the track itself was very nice. We do saw a huge herd of zebras running away and make some kind of strange noise which according to our brilliant guide means that one of them was killed by lions. So they were very nearby.
In the afternoon we packed our stuff and left for a 3 hour mokoro trip back to the boat point. We saw a herd of elephants where we were able to get very close by on foot. This mokoro trip truly was one of the highlights of our trip and a nice birthday present for Hanne!
