Botswana

We moved from Victoria Falls across the border to Botswana. I went on a river cruise down the Chobe river and so lots and lots of hippo’s and very close too. Hippo’s are huge and incredibly dangerous – they can bite you in two with one snap of their jaws and will do just that if you get between them and the water. They can also run very fast despite their size. Thankfully these hippos were contented munching the grass and were not slightly interested in the tourists gawping at them. From Chobe national park we moved northwards into the Okavango Delta. The traditional form of transport in the Delta is mokorro's or dug out canoes. I went for a three day expedition into the Delta - and I was poled there in a mokorro. Each canoe holds two people and is 'driven' by a poler. They are slightly like gondolas in Venice but the canoes sit alot closer to the water - in fact alot of the time was spent slightly below river level. It was ever such a peaceful way to travel. Drifting through the reeds, the water lillys and the papyrus plants. We made a camp along the banks of one of the rivers and spent the days relaxing and going for walks in the surrounding bush. Saw some elephants, giraffes, zebras and we walked extremely close to a herd of hippo's for my liking. I tried to have a go poling one of the canoes and spent half an hour simply going around in a circle. I wasn't the worse driver by far, Geoff managed to tip his canoe over and fall in, eventually I managed to pole the 20 metres it took the professionals about 2 minutes to cover the same distance! Our polers also took us all out in a mokorro safari - again we got very close to some hippos wading in the river. I also saw a puff adder snake swimming across the river - it was cool! After 3 days we were poled out of the Delta (coming out we got very wet as a torrential rain storm erupted absolutely soaking us through and filling the canoes with water) I then boarded a small plane and went for a flight above the Delta. The ariel shot was taken by me and the photo of the plane is in fact the plane in which other members of my group were on - this photo was taken out of my plane window. From the air I saw such a large herd of elephants, there must have been close to 200 elephants. The scenery was stunning. I really enjoyed my time in Botswana but time flies and we have to move on to Namibia.