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.......
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