After spending the night at a camp near Chobe, we set out early the next morning to head to Maun, Bostwana, which is just outside of the Okavango Delta.

The next day we set out early in the morning to spend 3 days and 2 nights in the delta. It took about 1 hour to get into the delta and meet our guides and polers who would take us in. We rode through the waters of the Delta on traditional canoe-like boats called mokoros. They are a bit longer and skinnier than a canoe and each is made from a single trunk of a sausage tree. The mokoros are controlled by a single poler at the back who holds a long stick and uses the stick to push the mokoro along through the water. The ride through the Delta was so relaxing. We sat 2 people per mokoro with 1 poler and glided along the reeds and water lillies.


I even got a water lilly necklace courtesy of our poler Lee.

And here's Justin with our poler Lee.

After setting up our camp on the island, we spent the afternoon swimming in the water of the Delta and even trying our hand at driving the mokoros. I have to say that it is definitely harder than it looks. We worked up a major sweat, huffing and puffing, and didn't get very far very fast with the mokoros.
In the evening and again at sunset the next morning, we took 2-3 hours guides walks over 2 different islands of the delta. We saw a number of animals while on foot including zebra, giraffe, wildebeast and lots of different birds. It was really a different experience to see these animals on foot as opposed to from the back of a car.

Because of the heat of the day, we spent the entire day in the shade of the trees around our camp site playing cards and taking occassional dips in the water. There have been very, very few times in our lives when we have had NOTHING to do, just what the doctor ordered.
In the evening, we went out on the mokoros for a sunset cruise, had some beer, cheese and crackers and enjoyed the scenery. This is us trying to carefully balance in the mokoro as we stood up. Luckily we didn't fall over, but the mokoros are very unstable and it was a little touch and go there for a while.

One thing that we did learn was that the spiders on the Delta like to put up their spider webs along the reeds at dusk. By the time that we started to head home, there were spider weds everywhere. The poler had to duck almost constantly to avoid getting hit in the head with spiders and spider webs. Yuck!!!! Here's a pic of the spider webs in the sunset, I hope you can see all the webs.

That evening, the polers and guides treated us to some traditional singing and dancing around the camp fire. The songs told stories of the animals (including one of a horse that didn't want to be ridden), the lives of the people and even one of a white man and bushman hunting an elephant (that one was super funny as the "white man" had a huge belly and butt made from pillows stuffed under Lee's clothes). After some fun and games it was off to bed. The only casualty of the night was my pedicure :(, which got a little melted when I got too close to the fire.

The next morning before heading back to Maun, we stopped at the village of the local people to see how they live. Like all of the other villages that we have seen, there is no plumbing and no electricity. They get their water from the Delta and power from a generator. They live in mud huts that they have reinforced with cans to make them stronger.

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