After nearly one week in Kasane with a lot of interesting insights
into the african life, I went with a collective taxi to Nata and then by
bus to Maun. Maun is the centre for journeys into Okavangodelta.
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| Traditional Mokoro in Okavangodekta |
Okavango River starts in Angola, flows through Caprivi Strip of
Namibia and then enters Botswana. Here, the river branches off in
countless arms with various islands and finally ends in the sands of
Kalahari Desert. This scenery of water, islands and reed is best
experienced in a traditional mokoro, a small wooden boat. These boats
are mostly made out of the trunks of baobabs. It takes approx. one month
to make a boat like this. With low water it is punted through the
canals, after the rainy season locals row the boats. Of course, tourists
can not go by themselves to the delta, as a foreigner would easily get
lost in the channels and in between the islands.
Together with two Australians, I did a day trip with 2 mokoros. For
the night, we took our tents to camp on one of the bigger islands. There
are no shops and no restaurants for sure, so we had to bring our own
supplies.
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| Chameleon |
The journey by mokoro to the island took about 3 hours. It was a
great experience to be punted through the canals. These canals are often
formed by hippos, which create with their bulky bodies a channel for
the small boats. Logically, the punters are always watching out for
hippos in the channels and lagoons. Once, a hippo just came out of the
water about 10 meters from us, our punters became quite nervous and
hurried back. Though hippos are herbivores, but they might become angry
if one gets to close to them. It has already happened in the past, that
hippos attacked mokoros and passengers. Also with a deadly end. In the
afternoon, we went to a hippo pool, where we watched these huge animals
from a proper distance.
After a tasty spaghetti dinner with fantasy sauce soon everybody
disappeared in the tents. Boating simply makes tired, whether one punts
or is just sitting inside.
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| Okavangodelta |
In the middle of the night it suddenly started raining – in an
amazing amount! The rainy season should begin, actually, in about 14
days, but anyhow, this downpour looked quite like the start of rainy
season! In the morning this weather did not stop. Nevertheless, we went
in the rain for our walking safari. Nevertheless, quite unexpectedly, we
saw many animals. It is rather different, whether you watch big animals
like elephants, buffaloes or giraffes from the secure car or you meet
while walking… Because of the rain, we went back to the tents soon.
Despite rain jackets we were completely soaked. We hoped that,
nevertheless, the rain must stop sometime, so we simply waited for a
while in our tents. After two hours, it was sure that it will not stop
and that we have to break down the tents in the rain. This is always
unpleasant, but in such a downpour it is really bad! And then the
journey back by mokoro… As there is nothing to do, you just sit there
and it is getting colder and colder. In between we stopped sometimes to
get rid of the water from the plastic seats…. On the speed boat for sure
it became even colder. I cannot remember that I was so cold before in
my whole life!
After 30 minutes on the speed boat we arrived in Maun, where there
was coffee and a hot shower waiting for us. We were lucky and could rent
safari tents, as ours were completely wet, moreover, it also rained in
Maun! These safari tents are very comfortably and have even beds and
electricity inside. This was exactly what we needed.
