#Okavango16 Journal Day 11

Today a 2,000kg hippo crashed through the reed bed and nearly over top of Chris’s mokoro. When it reached the water it turned to us, its curved tusks bared, and roared.

But I don’t want to talk about big things. I want to talk about the small things that make up a day on the river.

1. Spiders. The Delta is full of bugs, and many of them spin webs low to the water to catch insects on or near the surface. We, in our boats, are also near the water surface, and as such we tend to run into their webs. I’d say on a given day I share my boat with 100–200 spiders. Small ones, medium sized ones, yellow ones, grey ones, black ones. I’ve grown to like them.
2. Dust. We don’t have anything close to running water while we’re out here, so we resort to ‘bucket showers’ — a tub of river water, a sponge, a container of biodegradable soap, and whatever modicum of privacy you can find. Still, it’s quite the luxury to feel clean, and we savour the 45 seconds between the end of the bathing and when our feet are covered in dust again. This is a flooded desert, after all.
3. Lunch. We typically eat some mixture of rice and beans. It might be rice and lentils. It can occasionally be pasta and beans. But it’s most often rice and beans. Every night the camp logistics crew makes 42 portions for 21 people; because it’s not only dinner, it’s lunch too. There’s a kind of competition to make this second-run meal novel: we add tabasco sauce and chili oil and peanut butter. Kerlin has even been known to add cookies.
4. Power. How do we get these missives out to you from such a remote place? How do we power 360 images, sensor deployments, and all of our open data machinery? The short answer: solar. We have three panels attached to three batteries which we charge all day in the brilliant sun. Typically during an expedition we’ll have to charge a battery with a generator once or twice, particularly when a film crew is around. But mostly we run on clean energy!
5. Business. Ok, Ok, we’re all wondering. How do bathroom facilities work when you are out on the water all day? What about at night when you’re camping on an island with an untouched ecosystem? To answer the first question, there are many days when we can’t stop on solid ground for five or six hours. So all of us learn to ride a careful balance between hydration and frequent urination. In an emergency, we can usually find a patch of island that can charitably be called solid. At camp, we employ the ‘dig and burn’ rule: any bathroom activities happen in a deep hole, and any paper involved is burned before the hole is refilled.

I hope this all gives you a peek into life on the river. If you have questions, feel free to ask us on Twitter!

#Okavango16 is a National Geographic Expedition to survey the biodiversity of Botswana’s Okavango Delta. Follow us on Twitter, Instagram & Facebook, and on IntoTheOkavango.org.