26^th June -Maun, Botswana

Due to our unplanned longer stay in Maun we had had to make some last minute plans and booked on a full day, half and half Mokoro/Boat trip of the Okavango Delta. This commenced with a 60 minute speedboat ride up the river  – and it was utterly freezing! The kind of icy cold wind that makes your forehead ache. And sees you huddled up and struggling to keep your jacket done up tight and your scarf covering your ears. Despite the cold we managed to have a good time because we got to see some pretty great stuff. Most importantly Monkeys! Which set Sarah to screaming, “Monkey, Monkey, Monkey!” This alarmed the German couple on the boat with us. Once they realized what it was though, they proceeded to make fun of Sarah, mimicking her tone and pitch.

We finally arrived at the spot where we were to hop into the Mokoro, a terrifyingly shallow and unstable looking dugout canoe type boat with a man standing on the back poling it around the river. It is a bit like a Venetian Gondola, though much less substantial and smaller.

Once over the fear of imminent death because of capsizing and consumption by crocodile, we realized that it was in fact an incredibly relaxing mode of transport. Sitting down with complete silence but for the ambient noise and gentle splashing of water as the driver poled us along. As we were poling thorough the Okavango Delta Raina keep looking David Attenburogh and his film crew.

And most excellently, we saw a *drum roll please*… … … Hippo!

It was huge, even from far away (as was pleasing, given the tiny boat we were in) and by just being about to see its head it is plain to see how big they are. It would dive under water and pop up ever few minutes and blow the water out of its nostrils making a loud noise. Louder than any whale.

As we poled away we occasionally heard that noise again, and couldn’t help feel a little anxious that one might be just around a bend or just over those reeds, as we were so low we could not see over many of the reeds. Luckily our driver guides could see as they were standing up. And knew where the deep holes were.

Now I mentioned before that we had booked on a half boat half mokoro day, which is what we expected and had prepared for. So we were a little startled when we pulled up on a bank, were ushered out of the boat and started getting pushed along somewhere. SURPRISE WALK! We were then informed that we were off for an hour and a half walk. Now we had prepared for a day that would start off freezing then warm up, but would be bearable because we were sitting leisurely in a boat. We had also brought enough water to last us through sitting down in a boat all day. Sarah had tights under jeans, and fashion (NOT walking) boots. Now the walk would have been great – if only we had known about it. Did I mention it was a walk through deep, soft sand in boots with a not tiny heel and zero ankle support. Sarah ended up stripping off her jeans (much to everyone else’s shock till they realized she had tights on underneath. In a stroke of genius the walk also took place at midday. In the hottest part of the day. Genius!

On the plus side though we did see a troupe of Baboons, elephants far off across the river, red lechasomething antelope, a semi-aquatic antlope - the Sitatunga, brown antelope, zebra, wildebeest and a lot of tracks.

We think at some point the guides just started making crap up, like that a print the size of say a Labrador was a lion track. Oh great, so we are out walking in lion territory without so much as a stick to protect ourselves? I don’t think so. Or that another track (that was the size of a large antelope or maybe a Wildebeest was a Giraffe track. Hmmm. Or that the Buffalo bones that have been there for three years are still visited by hyenas who still ate them and would take the old bones to the river to soak them so they are soft enough to eat. Lol.

Sarah did have a go at the guide for continuing to walk closer to a herd of Zebra that he was racing after but was driving them away while another group was trying to watch them. The idea of wildlife viewing is not to disturb the animals in order to get the closest look. Oh and the walk was over 2 hours. Would have been amazing if we were prepared for it. We then had a lovely lunch of stale slices of bread with cheap tuna and cheese. :P

We then poled for two hours back the meeting place – just enjoying it. Before the boat driver who took us out in the morning came back to collect us, we spent some time looking around the village the poler’s lived in. Our boat driver turned up with an esky full of drinks. Water, water, water! And beer. Sigh, lovely.

There was a nice guy from Swansea, Wales who had hitchhiked out for a look who wanted a photo of the Aussie girls hooking into the beer. On the way back we saw an absolutely ginormous lizard sunning itself. Well over one meter long.

We went down to another lodge on the riverside and had a great steak looking at the sunset over the Okavando Delta. Sigh.

Again we were in bed before 7.30pm, what grannies!