It’s morning at the lovely Thamalakane hotel in Maun, Botswana. I am lying in bed in my cottage, savoring the air-conditioned coolness and thinking about our agenda for the day.
We are to enjoy a day-long outing in a mokoro, along with a one-hour nature walk. A mokoro is a traditional means of travel through the Okavango Delta waterways. It’s a dugout canoe propelled by a person who stands at the rear and poles the small vessel through the channels lined with vegetation, and thus those people are called polers.
I wasn’t sure about this mokoro thing. I’ve seen the videos of elephants and hippos attacking these itty-bitty canoes, tipping them over, and worse.
I’ve seen photos and videos of mokoros with seats with four legs that lift a passenger quite high above the keel, making the mokoros look incredibly top-heavy and subject to overturning with no assistance needed from huge beasts
But what’s an adventure without a threat of danger? Just my kind of adventure. Remember when I zip-lined across the second gorge at Victoria Falls while crocodiles waited below? I am determined to participate, and I set most of my concerns aside.
After breakfast, we meet at the appointed time in the common area. To my surprise, we load up in vehicles that will transport us to the embarkation site. We aren’t, after all, going to amble down the lawn to the riverside in front of the lodge and board the mokoros there.
I had checked out those mokoros at a distance—at a distance because wandering along a riverbank is not conducive to keeping the number of tourists at an optimal level. Crocs, you know.
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| The mokoros are the boats up on the shore, not the covered passenger boat. |
I am outfitted in a light green visor, newly purchased at the curio shop to replace the one I’d lost at Dinaka lodge. That one most likely took up residence in a Toyota Land Cruiser. Why wasn’t it on my head? Because it kept blowing off. I considered using a camera strap to tether it to myself, like I did in Brazil, but never got around to it.
I have been wearing a visor ever since cataract surgery a few years ago because artificial lenses let in much more light than the lenses we are born with. Those OEM lenses--Original Equipment Manufacture parts, I call them.
And, something I have yet to explain, if the light hits my eyes at a certain angle, I can’t see ANYTHING through my camera viewfinder. It’s completely black.
Anyway, the new visor is a light green—one of the neutral colors they recommend you wear on safari, like other shades of green, khaki, and the like. Blending in is the rule.
Here I am just a-styling with my new visor. I forget who took this photo, or I would render praise to whom it is due.
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| My visor has giraffes on it. It matches my green giraffe sort. The green tie around my neck is filled with absorbent pellets and was soaked in water. It helps keep me cool. And, the shirt is an SPF shirt that blocks ultraviolet rays. That, too, helps with not turning into a broiled brisket. |
Second surprise: it’s an hour-long drive, which also means it’s an hour-long drive back. That certainly eats into the "all-day excursion."
Off we go, and after stopping along the roadside in a small village to pick up our picnic lunch from a lady waiting for us, we eventually arrive at a beautiful location along a thickly-vegetated waterway, which is the launching site
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| The white things are water lilies. |
We have a bit of time at the launch site, enough for me to take a few photos, watch some cattle cross a channel into some lush grass, and consider once again the wisdom of doing this—a consideration rebirthed by looking at the mokoros themselves:
These are not wooden dugouts. These are replicas made of fiberglass, and the paint and resin that once contributed to their construction and finish are having a hard time remaining attached.
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| Not sure what the hole in the back is, but all the mokoros have them. The pole is called a nkashi. |
To my relief, there are seats with backs, and they don’t sit high above the keel. They are perfect. You simply sit on them with your legs stretched in front. You can turn the seat left and right, being careful not to overbalance the mokoro.
The seats appear to be repurposed from plastic chairs. One has a crack in the backrest and pinches the occupier when stressed just right.
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| Flat-bottomed for stability, and a narrow hull for gliding through water vegetation. |
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| Marg is behind me, getting her camera ready. |
Finally, we are off. The polers push the mokoros (and us) off the sandy beach, then wade in to turn the boat and climb in. Off through the water lilies we go.
So, here are some things we saw until a hippo blocked our way:
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| A great egret. |
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| A tree I liked. |
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| Cattle grazing. |
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| Another great egret. |
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| A poler spotted an animal way off in the distance, so Shelly climbed onto a mound with him to check it out. I wasn't carrying my camera with the long lens, so I stayed seated in my mokoro. |
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| A great egret in flight. |
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| The hippo blocking our way. |
The polers struggled to get us to shore once they saw the hippo. The vegetation was thick and difficult to pole through.
Once on the island, we walked up to a high point where some trees offered shade from the very hot sun. After a nice lunch, with plenty of cold water, we went on our nature hike.
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| Hauling lunch and water from where we had to beach the mokoros. The hippo is off to the right, but not in the photo. Bottom left is one of the seats we used. |
This was such a pleasant spot.
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| L-R in front are Sylvia, Alison, and Erin. At back are Laura, Shelly, and Marg. Randy, Virginia, and I are not shown. Cory opted to stay at the hotel. |
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| All the usual suspects, but now Virginia has joined them at the far right. |
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| Marg |
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| Malabou stork. |
I was having a hard time walking as fast as everyone else wanted to walk. The sun was really getting to me, but I persevered, despite Marg trying to nanny me into admitting it was too much for me. I was still recovering my stamina after major abdominal surgery with significant complications.
They even put me at the head of the line, but that soon dissolved into various lines as some broke formation.
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| A couple of elephants |
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| This plant, which is similar in appearance to saw palmetto, is chewed by elephants to clean their teeth of any fibrous particles that might be stuck in their molars. |
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| The tan stuff at lower right is a wad of elephant " chewing gum." |
Our very nice guide pointed out plants of interest, especially one that he called “elephant chewing gum.” It’s a plant similar to the saw palmetto of the southeastern United States.
Finally, I called uncle. It was too hot, and I could not keep up.
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| Some of the water lilies are lavender. |
This post is getting too long,
All in all, it was a pleasant and relaxing way to spend a nice day before once again getting involved in the hectic hubbub of travel.
I do not mean to make fun of this outing, but, I will tell you what I told our group organizers. It was my impression that
Tomorrow is a travel day again. Off to Johannesburg in South Africa.
In the meantime, however, there have been several discussions at various times among our group that have been worrying me. That’s the next chapter.
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