Okavango Delta

A place like no other I've seen on earth. Its tranquillity, beauty, and abundance of flora and fauna can surely be matched by few other places. We had packed all of our provisions for 3 days into our two backpacks and headed into the delta on a motor boat. We traveled for about two hours with motor until the channels became too narrow. At this point we met our guide Benny who was going to show us the many wonders of the Delta over the next few days from a wooden dugout mekoro (canoe like boat). Benny was our poler which means he stood in the back of the mekoro with a ten foot pole to propel us forward at a relaxing pace.
As we traveled deeper and deeper into the Okavango Delta the only sounds were the mekoro slicing through the water and the tropical birds swooping overhead. After three hours, with the sun hot and high overhead, we glided through the reeds onto shore to set up camp for the night. We had a bight to eat, through up the hammock, and swung in the wind waiting for the intensity of the sun to abate. For the previous 6 weeks Caroline and I had done very little sitting. We were always on the move trying to balance seeing as much as we could while still being able to soak it in. The forced relaxation of the Delta was a nice change.
With 2 hours of sunlight remaining we headed out on foot for a walking safari to find animals and watch the sun set from the bush over the Delta. Benny seemed to know everything about the Delta. Every bush , tree, bird, animal, and noise we saw or heard he told us all about it origin and uses. We saw elephants, zebras, giraffes, and many other animals. More than once I was nervous by our proximity to these wild animals. Benny would spot packs of animals from a distance and we would thne stalk them using trees and bushes to mask our advance. When we would emerge from our cover to have a closer look the animals would be quit anxious. They would sometimes run to safety of the thick bush. Other times however they would advance towards us making warning noises. During one of these such times I looked around and realized that we were utterly defenseless. There was no place we could run, no place we could hide, and there sure was not anything with which we could fight off a heard of wild animals with. This provided just a glimpse into the life that people have been living on this continent for thousands of years. I could not help to make the comparison to how millions of people In Africa and throughout the world must feel living in a war zone (obviously the feelings of living in a war zone are drastically more intense). The whole incident with the animals provided a wonderful glimpse into the behavior of the animals.
On the morning of the third day we awoke early and watched the sun rise over the delta. We headed out on our last walking safari and we saw similiar things to the previous times with one exception. We came across a long track about 8 inches wide in the sand. It was the track of a 12-14 foot boa constrictor which had just passed by minutes before. We followed the track for a few minutes until we found the hole the snake had slithered in to. It was a peculiar feeling standing above the hole knowing that a few inches bellow my feet there was a massive snake which could feel the vibrations of our footsteps.
The snake never emerged which was just fine with me. My only other run in with a boa was a few years before. I was living in the jungles of Central America and I found a 6 foot boa behind my fridge. That run in was enough to last me a lifetime.
We had planned on spending the rest of the day swimming in the delta and relaxing at camp before we headed back to civilization. Instead of this however we asked Benny if we could leave early so he could show us his village. Benny lived just inside the Delta in a village of 500 people. the Village was there to provide polers for people desirering to go into the delta. We wanted to see how Benny lived and to meet some of the poeple with whom he lived. Benny was pleased we watned to see where he lived and around mid day we packed up camp, loaded the mekoro, and slowly made our way down the delta.