Okavango Delta

Stunningly beautiful. Tranquil and unspoiled.

Canoe (mokoro) trip into the Okavango Delta is a mandatory experience in a visit to Botswana. Even with not-so-good weather as we had (light showers, cloudy sky) it is still an experience like no other. Close contact with nothing but nature - sounds, smells and sights. No motors, no blabbing tourists, very, very relaxing!
Accomodation in Maun was OK, and we were sorry that a fly-in safari to a luxury lodge inside the Park was out of our budget-range (but it must be stunning!).

Not the Africa I was expecting. Awesomely suprised.

The Okavango Delta was a location that we had heard a lot about, but had seen little of. So when we decided to head to Botswana, we put the Delta on our must do list. Was one of the best decisions we made.

From the flight from Kasane airport into the campgrounds, to the drive from the bush runway to our tented site it was spectacular. Three days of seeing all types of animals, Lions and Leopards, to Elephants and Painted Dogs.

I would highly recommend the Delta to anyone who wants to experience ALL of Africa. Also, with the introduction of Rhinos, you can't go wrong!

Excellent variety and quantity of wildlife.

We used lodges varying from primitive and rustic to 4-star class. A guided kayak trip out of Maun was based in ordinary 2-person tents. The Footsteps lodge was cabin-sized tents with plumbing, but the Little Kwara lodge was much better appointed. The food at both lodges was very good. The guided game drives produced many great close-up wildlife sightings and the guides were usually well trained and very friendly. Our weather in May was unusually cool, getting down to near freezing some nights. The days were comfortable, but the temps for dawn game drives required a jacket on top of a sweater. The clothes that we took were not quite warm enough for comfort in these conditions. The upside of the low temperatures was that we had no trouble at all with bugs.
Our favorite memories came from dawn and sunset game-tracking walks with the local native guide on our kayak trip north of Maun.

Driving holiday in Botswana

We started our holiday in Victoria Falls and drove through Botswana and Namibia to get to Windhoek. We hired a Nissan Pickup with a roof tent, which is the perfect way to explore this part of the world at your own pace. The part of the Okavango Delta that we saw was beautiful, we stayed at Swamp Stop and Drotsky's camp. Both come highly recommended, but watch out for the cheeky vervet monkeys - they steal anything.

An Okavango highlight was going on a river cruise where we saw many interesting birds such as fish eagles, Jesus birds, bee-eaters as well as reptiles including monitor lizards and crocodiles. At the time of year we went, there can be heavy rainfall, so we visited a world heritage site at Tsodilo Hills where we saw ancient cave paintings. The heavy rain meant that the road/track was very muddy and it was necessary to have a 4x4 in order to access the site.

This part of Botswana is certainly off the beaten track with hundreds of kilometers between food and fuel stops, so make sure you go prepared! Highly recommended. Check out some of my photos here:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/76566612@N03/

Spectacular encounters with beautiful animals in unspoilt surroundings.

If you are interested in seeing animals and birds in their natural surroundings, unspoiled by a constant stream of trucks passing by, then this is the place to come. Because many areas are concessions, it means that fewer people are "out on safari" at any one time and the guides coordinate with each other so that their vehicles only converge if something extra special is spotted.
We stayed in two places in the Delta, Sango Safari Camp in the Kwai Concession and Pom Pom Camp.
Sango was our favourite stop of all the places we visited throughout Zambia and Botswana, with the staff being so friendly and the food out of this world, especially considering how isolated it is. The highlight here were the African Painted Dogs which we saw on three separate occasions at close quarters. We saw a large family of 20 resting under some bushes and then one night we were surrounded by them playing and frolicking. The most memorable, though, was a smaller family of six cornering a large spotted hyena and giving it a good seeing to before letting it go, bloodied and bowed but able to slink away to fight another day.
Pom Pom was very different and because the water was low, it probably wasn't at its best. After saying that, however, we had some wonderful and very close encounters with lions and leopards, with a 1 year old leopard probably the most beautiful animal I have ever seen in my life. It was waiting for its mother to come back with food but in the meanwhile, entertained us with acrobatics in its tree. The birdlife was great but sporadic. We saw 2 Pels Fishing Owls and lots of water birds plus the usual variety of kingfishers , babblers, coucals etc but perhaps not quite the abundance that we saw in Chobe and around Victoria Falls.
I would definitely return to either camp as you do get the impression that things can change very quickly and new birds and animals are just around the corner.
A spectacular holiday in all respects.

In april 2015 i enjoyed two night in a mobile bush camp in the Okavango Delta. Local people brought us with a mokoro, a small canoe with two guests and a poler, to our camp site in the delta. They had put up ten tents under the trees on a island in the delta. There were two bush toilets, two bush showers and a big party tent for breakfast, lunch and diner.
We did two bush walks with guides. Topgun, our main guide at the head of the line, then six tourists and a guide at the back of the line. Topgun told us a lot about wildlife in the delta. We had a close encounter with a herd of elephants. We saw lion foot prints. An lot of wildebeest and zebra.
The last night in the camp, the guides and polers performed for us. They danced and sang local songs. Camping in a mobile camp in the Okavango Delta is a wonderful experience!

Getting back to Nature

Okavango Delta had an amazing range of habitat from savannah to wetland to woods. In most other areas we found that after 3 days you had "worked" an area. In the Okavango that is not true, there is just so much to see. We deliberately went in the wet season to increase our chances of bird/animal spotting and to enjoy the scenery more. We were very fortunate in that we only had one evening's rain and one overnighter so it was an excellent choice - not too hot either. We stayed at Kwara Camp which was excellent, yes it looks a little tired but that didn't matter, it blended in with the habitat. In with nature - being woken at 3am to hear Lions "purring" just outside the tent wall was quite an experience ( I took my hearing aids out so you can imagine how loud it was) - but you are quite safe inside. One night we had to be taken by Landrover to the main tent (100 metres) because of lions prowling around. The food was varied and all excellent - something for everyone I would think, I thought I might lose weight - wrong so good and so much I put plenty on... Off on the trips we saw the usual suspects hippo, elephant, lion, giraffe, warthog (my favourite), zebra, Antelopes and a tortoise. Painted Reed Frogs when we went out canoeing and an Ostrich family with 8 youngsters. Bird life - well with the range of habitat there is a large number of species you can see. Carmine Bee-eaters, Crested Barbet, openbills and plenty of raptors. How much you see does depend on your guide as well as your knowedge, in particular who you are out for the day with - if you are with people uniterested in birds and only in chasing for wild dogs then you'll see much less bird or insect/butterfly life. We were lucky on our whole Safari in that only once were we in a group that wanted to chase, other times we were on our own and could take our time (saw more birds and animals that way). Another advantage of the wet season when the camps aren't so full. I've just looked back over my Flickr album of Okavango Delta and am amazed at what we saw.

Just go - you won't be disappointed - we spent 3 nights in Kwara and so had the best part of three (two whole plus two half) days, I'm glad we didn't do any less.

Okavango Delta offers the truest safari experience - spectacular wildlife and unspoiled nature

Our three nights in the Okavango Delta were the nature highlight of our Southern Africa trip. (which is no small thing with stops in Zambia, Cape Town and Londolozi – all highly recommended!) The difference in the Okavango was the beauty of the delta itself. The blue ribbons of water lined with sea grass and occasional water lilies were a photographer’s dream - especially when out of the grass poked a brightly colored Jacana or a trumpeting elephant.
All activities at camp revolve around the water. We were met by staffers at the airstrip who transferred us to a small launch to make our approach to camp. Twice daily game drives were in Land Rovers equipped for the watery terrain. We drove through areas with 3-4 feet of water. “Legs Up!” would shout our guide and we’d hold cameras, etc., above our heads.
The wildlife in the Okavango was extraordinary, with close encounters with leopards, hippos and elephants. And the abundance of birdlife is legendary. Afternoons at camp were spent watching crested barbets, weaver-birds, and other striking species from our deck.

Exploring wonderful Okavango Delta

After a bumpy ride, we arrived at the campsite in Gweta, at the Okavango Delta, where the staffs were waiting and welcoming us by singing and dancing. After a short briefing about the activities we were going to take, the staffs immediately served us some tea and coffee. Late in the afternoon, we took a 2-hours trekking (we spotted some elephants, buffaloes); after dinner, the staffs entertained us with more dances and songs by the campfire. The staffs were so warm, welcoming, and friendly-just like all the staffs from other campsites during our stay in Botswana.

The next day we were taking a Mokoro (a dug-out canoe), we left early in the morning to explore the Okavango Delta. The mokoro can carry 2 people and a poler, usually a guide from a local campsite. The poler, stands in the stern and uses a long pole to propel through the shallow water. It is so peaceful and serene, and the water is so calm during the trip. The view is breathtakingly beautiful, especially during the sunrise. Okavango Delta is the home of more than 400 species of birds, large variety of wildlife and painted reed frogs.

Another way to enjoy the aerial view of the delta is by taking a 45-minutes helicopter rise (a 206 or 210 Cessna) from Maun Airport, which cost about US$90.00. In order to be able to see different views, the helicopter sometimes flies at 45 degrees angle left or right, which could be nauseating and making you dizzy. Those uncomfortable feelings is a very small price to pay for the magnificent view from the sky, especially when you spot the animals- elephants, hippopotamus, buffaloes, among other things.

The weather in March was nice although sometimes a bit chilly at night, since it was almost the beginning of the Autumn. The roads mostly bumpy, e.g., it took about 6 hours to drive about 500 kilometers. One thing we noticed in Botswana was that we stopped at the police check points very often; for what purpose, we never knew. The immigration officer at the Kazungula (Botswana-Zimbabwe Border) was very friendly. He asked if we had a nice time and invited us back to visit different parts of the country. We left Botswana very happy that day-not only we saw so many animals (elephants, lions, giraffes, zebras, rhinos, birds, antelopes, etc), but also some countrysides, as well as met nice people.

Not to sound cliche, but you will never forget the experience and the excitement after taking these trips.

A remarkable place in Botswana

Okavango Delta (Botswana) offers amazing and varied vistas with incredible wildlife diversity for the avid photographer. The photos captured at Okavango Delta are second to none and favorable weather makes days very productive. The sights are highly memorable and a global treasure.