18 February 2010
We managed to get a sleep in today, which was really nice, after all those early mornings. That being said our sleep in was a 6:30am start, but after goodnights sleep in a double bed I woke up feeling like a million bucks. I woke Siobhan, who groaned “It hurts!” as I woke her having a much harder night than I had. I then went to breakfast, and had baked beans and eggs on toast, which was awesome.
We got on the truck and drove back down the bumpy flooded road and a little way down a less bumpy road to the border with Botswana. We went through immigrations formalities, if that’s what you can call a no questions asked stamp in your passport and crossed into Botswana. We had to cross the Okavango River and we waited for the ferry to take us to the other side. We had to wait for a few crossings until it was our turn. The last people who went across crashed into the truck in front which made us all laugh hysterically. As we crossed the river we were greeted with another long bumpy road, which went on for about 200km and took about three hours to travel. As we drove, we saw huts that the locals were living in and had to shoo the odd cow, goat or donkey out of our path.
We got to the end of the road and to the beginning of the Okavango Delta, the world’s largest inland delta. We jumped on these small canoes called Mokoros and were poled to a deserted island where we set up camp. Another night with no showers or toilets.
We got to the camp pretty early, and we went for another more leisurely ride in the Mokoros. It was really lovely being poled through such a beautiful place. The water lilies in the marshes were in full bloom and there were actual papyrus thickets everywhere, just like there would be in the Nile Delta. I hadn’t actually seen real papyrus growing so that was great for me. Especially when the guys poling us along told us you could chew on it to get water.
We came to a rather open area and we actually saw a few hippos, it was great to watch them and we kept our distance as they are quite vicious if disturbed. After we left the hippos in peace (not in pieces) we watched the sunset over the delta, which was truly one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen. I took one particular photo of myself and in the background it looks like there’s fire in the sky.
We then went back to our camp, where Charles had made us spaghetti bolognaise for dinner. I felt quite tired after the long day and went to bed and fell asleep to the sounds of African ladies singing “Mama Africa”. A truly wonderful day.
