In Awesome Wonder, Part 1

“Oh Lord my God, when I in awesome wonder, consider all the works thy hands have made.” That pretty much sums up our wonderful week in northern Botswana. We are back and rested from our trip and boy do we have some tales to tell. We are still hoping for a better view of the elusive leopard, but we have seen just about all the other big species that frequent Botswana. We have also managed to see just over a hundred species of birds thus far and we are still counting. Wow!

Our trip north started with four days in the Okavango River Delta. Oddballs Camp, see the picture below, is one of several remote camps located in the Okavango Delta that caters to a wide variety of guests. We chose to do away with “some” of the creature comforts of home and slept in a large tent on a tent platform with an outdoor toilet and shower heated by solar panels. The camp and others like it are accessible by small plane and boats during the wet season and each arrival brings in the needed supplies for the guests and the workers.

Our home sweet home away from home.

Although we did away with some comforts we did not do away with great food and awesome service on behalf of the Oddballs staff. Every morning started with a full breakfast served to your order, followed by an all day outing by mokoro, a canoe made by hand from the trunk of a Sausage Tree, and by foot.

Jon and Julie in a mokoro with Phillimon our guide.

Moving through the delta this way allows you to see the wildlife much like you can imagine it has been done for centuries. Although you can’t get quite as close to the animals as you can in one of the big national parks you can see so much of the small details that make the remoteness worth the effort. During our four day trip several things stood out as worth mentioning (although just about everything was remarkable). First we managed to find ourselves running after lions in order to see them more closely. Yes that’s right. We chased lions through the Okavango Delta. Because they are not habituated to the presence of all the jeep traffic, as they are in the big parks, lions are very shy and tend to move away quickly from anyone coming close. In order to see them you must track them through the open dry islands that are scattered throughout the delta. We managed a few quick glances and even fewer pictures but did get a chance to see a small pride relaxing, until we stirred them up a bit, in the shade of some small thorn trees.

You can just see one of the female lions running away as we get close.

Next on our list of highlights would be coming across a submerged hippo resting in the shallow water away from the main channel. Large bulls will kill any young hippos that are not their own if given the chance so the females hide them in the shallow water during the day to avoid being found by the males as they spend the day in the deep water. One morning as we were just getting started, a young hippo rose out of the water not more than ten feet from our mokoro and ran off in search of its mother in the deeper channel. The resulting wave of water washed into our boat and managed to spook even our guide who quickly turned us around to safely observe the herd of hippos from a new spot on the river. Standing up in the mokoro we did manage to see the females giving us the eye from deeper water as they checked on their little baby. The best description I have of the experience is that it was like being next to a submarine when it surfaces. Close to 1500 pounds coming out of the water next to your canoe can be quite the thrill.

I think the poor thing was more scared than we were.

Finally, we had to hide behind some fallen trees to keep from being the main attention of an elephant that we came across walking through the bush. We have been closer to elephants on our trip several times but that was from the safety of a large Land Cruiser. It is quite a different experience to be within twenty five yards or so of an elephant when you are on foot in the wild. You really learn to trust your guides as they help you consider not only your safety but the safety of the animals you experience at every turn.

So big to be so close.

We hope the pictures help convey a little of our experiences. Our next post will tell you about the Chobe River portion of our trip.

So long for now.