Crossing the Okavango Delta: Working Our Way In
Our first morning inside the Delta... It’s starting to come back to me. It’s just two of us, shivering around the first flames of the fire, waiting for the coffee to boil. It’s peaceful and yet filled with sounds.
Yesterday started in the same sort of papyrus walled channel. Another lagoon, another exit an amateur would never find, another channel. As we approach an intersection I hear Tom behind me, 'now we go downstream' which sounds totally ridiculous. Then I remember this channel we are traveling through is laid on top of a massive moving body of water. Like a corn field maze set just above a treadmill. The turns effect only us and this "landish" looking stuff on either side? It isn't land at all. When it opens up again we can see a few trees, but at the distant horizon. That's how far we are from ground.
The major habitat change comes just before lunch. Trees have closed in, papyrus has changed to grass and the water shallows and widens. Red and green lillypads with white, purple, and yellow flowers begin to dot the path. The sound of hippos and sightings of incredible wetland birds increase substantially. Signs that we are getting deeper into the Delta are everywhere. Finally, our first encounter with hippos in the water. A pod of 14. The bulls are eyeing us, but not coming close. The water is wide here and they give us space to pass by. Shortly after we see a couple elephants having lunch 200 yards away and our first baobab tree.
We lunch on a tiny 'soda' island filled with elephant dung and spoon last nights rice and beans beneath the shade of palm trees. These islands draw the salt up onto them so the soft looking grass is actually quite rigid and sharp. I'm worn out by the sun and the paddling so I lay back anyway.
A short stretch later we have to call it a day and land on a island new to our team. It’s a long slog to where we put up camp. A tent pole on the production tent pole is busted, so I spend the next hour restringing it. We landed late in the day so by the time camp is functioning and dinner is cooked, I am putting up my tent in the dark. I take two wash tubs and head down to the water. It’s only about two feet deep and filled with grass but if you pull the water in slowly it’s clear save for eight or nine minnows. I’m bathing in the moonlight by the water. Even though I’m running extremely low on sleep and getting eaten alive by mosquitoes. It’s hard to have a bad day out here.