The Adventures of Bra Grylls 3- Moving too Fast

When I first started thinking about writing a blog for my trip to the Okavango Delta, I thought it was going to be similar to the one I did in Zanzibar... Updates every couple of days, with tales of what I had seen, heard and felt.
The difference, I soon discovered, is that in Zanzibar, I had days of sitting and spending a lazy hour at breakfast, a leisurely lunch, and chilled dinners.
The Delta doesn't do lazy, or leisurely..... Wake up calls at 5:15am, quick breakfast in camp, out by 6:15am and on a game drive until 1 or 2pm... A half hour stop for lunch, and out on the drive again until 7pm..... Return to camp around 7:30pm, showers, then dinner at 8pm....everyone exhausted and hitting their tents by 10pm.
No time to really absorb what we saw, let alone blog about it!!!

So instead I'm going to focus on the "magic moments" something we all took in turns to talk about every night at dinner.

The Okavango Delta is indescribably beautiful. Botswana gets no rain for 8-9 months of the year (March-Sept ish) during which the entire landscape dries up. The Delta 
 itself recedes to virtually a desert, save a few lush green water filled havens. As the Delta dries up, animals slowly follow the watering holes, congregating together to survive not just against the big predators, but also the harsh conditions- 30+ degree heat and no moisture. 
So the landscape changes drastically- from the yellows and browns of the mopane tree forests broken and reduced to small "sapling" sized trees, damaged by the elephants and other animals needing the moisture from the trunks and leaves, to lush, vibrant waterways filled with the most incredible blues and greens you have ever seen.
Yellow, dried out savanna grasslands filled with umbrella thorn trees, straw-like grasses and dead skeletal trees, to thick brown and dark green bushvelt. 
And the different smells in the air are overwhelming! Wild sage grows in parts, filling the air with lush herby scents, other more arid areas smell dusty and ancient, yet the waterways fill your lungs full of moist, rich air- full of the scent of leaves, dampness and rivers.

Everyone says how blissfully quiet the bush is compared to towns and cities.... I thought that too, but we're so wrong!!! Ok there isn't the roar of cars, planes, bustling noises of people and beeping horns, but the sounds are there all the same.
 During the day- birds singing their individual stories, jackals barking, lions roaring, impala and kudu barking, monkeys and baboons chattering and chuntering. Hippos laughing their deep bellied laughter, elephants squealing or trumpeting or rumbling.
By night, the orchestra changes..... The buck are silent, trying to remain hidden, unless they bark out an alarm call. Cicadas and crickets chirrup away in time with the multitudes of frogs and toads. Owls hoot and hyenas whoop. Lions call out their hunting cries, and the hippos continue to laugh.

Our guide was an incredible guy called Ofentse, originally from Gabarone. He's been guiding for 15 years, and specialised in birding. This guy has the most incredible tracking talent.... Spotting individual tracks from a path full of vehicle, animal, and insect tracks "The bush Internet tells me what has been happening" he laughs as he reads the road.
Listening to animal calls and immediately picking up on alarm calls, following them to see what kind of predator has caused the bird/squirrel/monkey/buck to sound the alarm.

I can honestly say that if he hadn't been our guide, the whole trip would have been a lot less interesting. He has a deep rooted passion for what he does, an infinite amount of knowledge on wildlife, flora, fauna, and the cultures within Botswana. He was compassionate, being involved in various research projects to help balance the ongoing scales of farming vs conservation, and he taught his 3 passengers (me, my photography tutor Stuart, and my new bush-friend Kath) with humour and excitement. I challenge anyone to be that excited after 15 years in the "same job"!!!

So this is where I found myself. I remember, about a week into the trip, standing on the edge of a river, with my camera mounted on a tripod, knee deep in grass, taking photos of an elephant bull of the other side of the river.
It suddenly hit me. 
If you'd told me 10 years ago that I would one day be doing a wildlife photography workshop in Africa, sleeping in tents with a short-drop for a toilet, I would have laughed you out of my nice London apartment and carried on booking holidays to 4 or 5* all-inclusive resorts.
If you'd asked me 3 years ago, I would have laughed at the very thought of me sleeping in a tent full of bugs and scary crawled, and would have laughed at you for suggesting it!!

But there I was, and I was loving every single second of the experience.......

The Adventures of Bra Grylls 2- it's all about the Lions

2 days in and. I am still alive, and WOW what a bloody adventure this is going to be!!! 

Day 1, we check out of the Sedia hotel and spend the entire day travelling to our camp in Xakanaxa (pronounced Kakanaka)

On the way to camp, saw a battleur eagle, very cool... Red beak and talons. Took several photos of a saddle billed stork, and watched the endangered ground hornbills walking around.

Then we heard it. The sound of a male lion calling. We followed his bellows u til he could have been sat in our laps. Instead, he was maybe 15 metres away, lying flat out on his side. Every bellow we could feel through the vibrations in the floor through the Land Cruiser. I can't even begin to describe how powerful that was. 

So we drove a little further only to find the rest of his pride, 3 lionesses and 9 cubs of 2 litters, one maybe a month older than the other. 

The lionesses had to cross a small channel of water, maybe 6 feet wide, but we're clearly not happy. Like you would expect your own tabby to do, she tiptoed, dipped, stressed and changed her mind about a dozen times before finally leaping across the strait, only to fall short by a foot. She was not impressed at her dunking, came out muddy and cold.

She then chuffed and called to the cubs to do the same, but o my they weren't as keen. Half an hour later, they eventually swam, leapt, kitty-paddled across and all 12 of them strolled muddily over to their next adventure- an elephant carcass (of which we smelled that sickly sweet stench long before we saw it) in the watering hole, until the 3 suspicious mothers realised there was crocodile hiding behind it, waiting for unsuspecting opportunists to fall off, and they dutifully called their cubs back to safe dry land.

We arrived at camp later that evening and I had a tour of the shower (1/3 of a bucket per shower) and the short drop toilet which was essentially a hole dug in the ground with a frame and a toilet seat over it. You do what you need to do and use a trowel to cover your "do" with soil.... But please don't use too much toilet paper.

("I'm sorry what????")

So the first day was amazing but emotional- saw lions as I've never seen them before and slept in a tent for the very first time.

The next morning I woke up wondering how I managed to sleep through the cacophony of the bush.... Cicadas, scops owls yowling at each other, a hippo down the road laughing hysterically at us  all, hyenas barking. But (possibly aided by a few alcoholic beverages I was out like a light.

 

The Adventures of Bra Grylls- panic stations!!

So here I am, in a hotel, waiting to leave for the Okavango Delta, for 2 weeks of camping in the bush.

I've got such a roller coaster of emotions flying around right now. I am beyond excited, I'm nervous, and if I'm totally honest, a little scared too.

Why am I scared? Well let's see. My safari experiences to date, although have been many, have involved a 4/5 star resort and a relatively small private game reserve.

This is a whole different kettle of fish. 

We are camping in the wild.... The team with us set up camp while we are on drives, and they dig us long drop toilets, and put tents up around them.

There are no fences, so some of the group I'm with have spoken about hyenas trotting through camp looking for scraps of food.

So very cool but also (let's have a reality check he) very flipping scary!!! 

There are a myriad of things that can (and probably will) bite me.

On the last day we're going on an open-door helicopter to swoop and fly over the Delta to get a birds-eyed view!!

I've never camped before, what if I don't like it!?

What if I get sick?

What if I fall over and make an ass out of myself?

What if my stomach decides to rebel?

What if I don't get on with everyone in the group?

What if I get bitten?

What if I break out in a rash?

What if I have a panic attack in the helicopter as it dives down to swoop across a river?

What if what if what if???

Deep breath.

The whole point of this journey is that it's something I've wanted to do since I was around 10 years old.

It's going to be incredible. 

I am going to experience sights, sounds and smells found nowhere else in the world.

If I am really lucky, I am going to get some incredible wildlife  sightings- wild dogs, hyena, leopards.... 

It's coming to the end of the dry season in the Delta, so all the plains game converge on the remaining watering holes.... Predators know this and lie in wait.

All in all, this in going to be an incredible trip, and I know I am going to love it.

I can't spend my life worrying about fears, and what ifs.

Life is for living and I'm grabbing it by the horns and saying "Come on then, let's go!!!"