Traveling through Southern Africa (Part 3) –The Okavango Delta by Mokoro

We were up with the sunrise.  After breakfast, we packed the tents and drove to a dock on the river outside of Maun where a motor boat was waiting.  It took us to the edge of the Okavango Delta near the Moremi Game Reserve. There, we met our guides and polers and began the task of transferring everything we would need for the next few days into the mokoros. A mokoro is a dugout canoe traditionally made from the trunk of a sausage tree, but today, as part of an effort to conserve the delta, they are made of fiberglass.

With our supplies in place, we took to the water, two to a canoe with the poler standing in the back.  Those still on shore gave our mokoro a final push and we began a seemingly effortless glide through the reeds.

A Caravan of Mokoros poling through the Okavano Delta

For several hours, our caravan poled along hippo paths, passed Lechwe, zebra, tiny reed frogs, water birds and even the occasional human.  The sun was hot, but dipping my hands into the water was cool and refreshing.  Eventually, we came to an island marked by a large sausage tree where we would camp for the night.

A Fish Eagle watching our mokoro glide past

As we set up our tents and the polers went about the task of getting a fire going, two young women from our group slipped back into the dense brush surrounding the camp to use the bush toilet.  It wasn’t until we heard a loud deep rumble and the girls came screaming back into camp still pulling up their pants that we noticed an elephant standing only ten-meters away.  The polers froze in place and the guides beckoned everyone to be silent.  Happily after giving us the once over, the elephant turned away and disappeared into the brush without making a sound.

That night, far away from any human settlement, we tried to sleep in one of the noisiest places I have ever been.  The crescendo of buzzing insects and croaking frogs that came with the darkness was only the beginning.  Long into the night, we heard splashing as (large) animals moved between islands and the calls of mighty beasts echoed over the waters of the Okavango Delta.