Okavango and Makoros

Young kudu
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From bushmanland we headed into Botswana. At the border they stamped my passport "departed' even though we'd just arrived! We headed over towards the Okavango delta.  We had a long drive to the edge of the lagoon where we camped at a nice place called Gooma camp. We had sundowner beers overlooking an amazing sunset (another one!). Everyone was in good humour and it was a lovely evening, topped off by more of Martin's fantastic cooking and his scary stories of hippo and elephant encounters.

Waterlily, Okavango Delta
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The next day we took down the tents early and made our way by speed boat into the delta proper. We landed on Makoro island and from there transfered to Makoros, or dug out canoes. We were sat very low down the canoe and at first we had to really try to remain still, but pretty soon the peace and beauty of the place worked its magic on us and we relaxed. It was lovely, there was the plop sound of the pole as the poler punted the canoe forward, waterlillies parted in front of us, papyrus rustled in the wind and every so often a huge water bird would take to the sky. We even saw a fish eagle. The hour long journey was one of the most relaxing things I've ever done. We got some lovely pics. Bliss.

there was the plop sound of the pole as the poler punted the canoe forward,

Sunset, Guma
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We arrived on an island in the delta and our stuff was already there. We set about putting our tents up. We had the afternoon free and we lazed about and played cards. Then toward sunset, we piled into the makoros again and headed out to another island to go on a walk. We saw some red ledgeways (sort of a deer), some monkeys, a huge fish eagle and not much else. We were all looking for hippoes but no luck.

We piled back into the makoro again and made our way back. We were behind and all of a sudden our poler's pole broke and he went tumbling into the water! I could hear shouts ahead as the others tried to find out what happened. I'd said earlier there was no way I was falling out of the boat and luckily we held on and the poler managed to get back in. He was very embarrassed and soaking wet, poor guy. We headed back and assured the rest of the group we were bone dry, which they found hard to believe! We had a lovely meal and Martin told us some riddles, which were ridiculous but we forgave him as he produced another culinary masterpiece. We headed to bed early, nervously listening out for hippoes. The next morning we piled back into the makoros and went back to the island, joined the speedboat and headed back to Gooma camp. The next day we were heading back to Namibia and on our way to Caprivi strip.