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The day was sunny and clear, warm but not too hot. Gwen and Kate a.k.a. Thelma and Louise were coming in to land at Kasane airport deep in the Botswana bush. We had the most stupendous holiday planned and after years of holidays, we were properly prepared and researched.
This was not the first trip to Botswana for either of us. Being Africans at heart and nationality, this was a trip we had both done several times. We were looking forward to amazing safaries, game drives, warm evenings around a log fire and gazing at the vast African sky full of twinkling stars.
As the plane landed and taxied to the small terminal, Kate was suddenly transported back to a similar trip she had been on many years before.
“In the late 1980’s, several friends and I booked a house boat trip on the Chobe River. 2 weeks of cruising, game watching, fishing and general lazing about were on the cards for us. The pilot of our 6 seater fixed wing Cessna, was a friend of ours and the co-pilot was my boyfriend at the time.
After refuelling in Maun, we headed off for what was then nothing more than a very short flint stone air strip in Kasane. Upon arrival, the resident fuel provider arrived in her van with a huge tank of aircraft fuel on the back. She proceeded to refuel our plane in anticipation of the trip back.
We had the most wonderful time, the weather was perfect, and the house boat acceptable, the company was good and the crocodiles are plentiful but at a safe distance!
Many a day was spent with a guide, paddling through the shallows of the Okavango Delta in a mokoro – a traditional dugout canoe. All you hear at first is the gentle splash of the paddles in the water. Then, you become aware of a kingfisher perched precariously on a reed in the water.
The sun warms your back as you glide effortlessly through the delta, occasionally spotting a family of elephants coming down for a drink. A surprising number of birds and animals congregate around the water’s edge and the reed beds of the Delta. The ultimate in serenity.
What an extraordinary river this is. Born in the mountains of Angola, it flows deep into northern Botswana, 1,000 miles away. The Okavango creates Africa’s biggest oasis. When you fly in from Maun, the town at the edge of the delta, its enormous size becomes apparent. 10,000 square miles of reed beds, water lilies and floodplains interspersed with palm-tree islands. There is an abundance of wild life and birds, something magnificent and breath taking to see at every bend in the channels that form the Delta.
The best time to visit the Delta is when the floods come. Fuelled by the rains that fall in the Angolan mountains, they arrive just when they are needed most – in the middle of Botswana’s dry season, in the winter months of July and August.
The Okavango floodwaters are benevolent, and because the land is so flat, they are safe. Filtered through the papyrus swamps, they emerge crystal-clear, creeping down old hippo trails, replenishing the lagoons and lapping around the grassy floodplains. The floods not only benefit the wildlife (elephants and hippos, big cats, buffaloes and all the other herbivores), but also make this the best time to explore the Okavango by mokoro – the traditional Delta dugout canoe.
The mokoro is a unique and not-to-be-missed experience. Just sit back and go with the flow, soundlessly gliding among the reed beds and water lilies of a pristine wilderness teeming with frogs, dragonflies, bee-eaters and kingfishers.
The days are sunny and mostly cloudless, and from September onwards become increasingly warm as October approaches heralding the onset of Botswana’s “green season”. The rains that fall now tend to do so as sporadic late-afternoon storms with fine spells of sunshine in between, making the Delta a year-round destination.
Kasane is much changed today, and as the memory faded and Gwen and Kate stepped out of the plane, an awesome trip awaited them. More on that extraordinary trip next week.
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