Time: 11:00pm
Days abroad: 78
(post #3 of 10 day vac trip)
aaannnnnnddddd....we're back....continuing on from yesterday...
Monday, March 28, 2011
We all woke up very early Monday morning (surprise, I know) and left camp at 5:30am. We took a mokoro ride during sunrise over to another island in the delta, Khumo was our poler again:
When we got to the bigger island we split up into our 3 groups of 5 from the night before and set out on about a 4 hour game walk with our guides. Morotsi led the way and another one of the polers, Elia, came along with our group. We walked and walked for AGES and I was beginning to think they were playing a trick on us, calling it a “game walk” when Morotsi stopped suddenly and pointed in the distance and said “giraffe”. Now, walking across an island in the Okavango Delta is a special skill that probably takes years to hone. I spent literally the whole walk staring at my feet trying to avoid giant anteater holes and dips made by the mysterious elephants that supposedly live in the delta; how Morotsi spotted a single giraffe from a mile away I have no idea. And he was wearing flip-flops. I could not see the giraffe. At all. I wasn’t wearing my glasses, so this is no surprise. But I even borrowed Martin’s binoculars and could see nothing resembling anything except grass forever and then trees so far off in the distance they may well have been bushes. “Would you like to try and get closer?” was what Morotsi asked us uh, yeah. So we started walking again. It wasn’t for a good 10 minutes that I actually saw said giraffe. Standing next to a termite hill that was easily 6 feet tall. We stood there looking at him and he stood there looking at us for a good 20 minutes. Then Elia said “zebras”. We all turned to him and he pointed obscurely off into the distance. Once again, I saw nothing. These Tswana bushmen either have the best eyesight in the world or they know exactly what they are looking for. Or both. I couldn’t see a zebra if my life depended on it. I couldn’t even see anything moving. No blob, no herd, no nothing…I would’ve thought it was trickery for sure except the giraffe turned out to be true. SO, I took Elia’s word that there was, in fact, a herd of zebras over there. We set off walking again…pausing occasionally to watch the baboons chase each other around (Morotsi’s favorite animal, because you never get tired of watching them—they are always doing something funny). Morotsi told us the way to find lions is by listening to the baboons. When the baboons stumble upon a pride they start screaming and banging on the trees…which is a good tidbit to know if you are ever wandering around the delta… We walked and walked and walked and walked and I almost accidentally touched this giant caterpillar: 
Martin pulled me to the side just in time then Elia put his hand in there for some scale…apparently these caterpillars are a delicacy, you can buy them live in the supermarkets to cook… Then we walked and walked and walked some more and, by now, it is starting to get hot out…then we came around a corner of shrubbery and there WERE zebras! A lot of them! And giraffes! And several other groups of people. It was like a huge relief that we hadn’t trooped along all morning in vain:
This photo courtesy of the lovely Sara :)Morotsi decided that all of us tourists looked a little worse for the wear so maybe it was time to head back…we set off on a loop back around the island to where we left the mokoros. We passed by some elephant bones and Morotsi told us that when other elephants pass by the bones of one who has died they pick the bones up in their trunks and pass them down the line…like they are sad and compassionate for the loss of a comrade. Elephants are the only animals that show sadness when they come upon another elephant’s bones. This is Morotsi with the skull:
We also saw buffalo bones and a leopard tortoise on the walk back. The leopard tortoise is one of what they call the “small 5” animals of Africa. The “Big 5” are the 5 main game animals that were the hardest to hunt and therefore made the proudest trophies; now, they are the 5 animals that tourists are supposed to try and see…so you can claim you have seen Africa’s Big 5…they are elephant, leopard, rhino, lion, and buffalo (what we call water buffalo). The “Small 5” are a fun, touristy play on the Big 5…they are: elephant shrew, leopard tortoise, rhino beetle, ant lion, and red-billed buffalo weaver. And there you have your fun-fact for the day…haha
Anyway, we finally made it back to the mokoros (“oh they are just over by those trees…” the ENTIRE island was circled in trees…and we were hiking across plains of grass up to our armpits in crazy heat) and we were the last group back so we all piled into Elia’s and Morotsi’s mokoros and they took us back to camp. We got back around 11:30ish and, once again, spent the heat of the day lolling about in the shade. The women mokoro drivers were gathering and boiling reeds and weaving beautiful baskets and jewelry out of them all afternoon.
At about 5, the mokoro polers rounded us all up and took us out for a ride to the main channel…Khumo finally started warming up a bit. He taught Sara and I the Tswana words for many of the animals: hippo = kubu which, I think, is a way more descriptive word for what a hippo looks like…you say “kubu” and you can totally picture a hippo; leopard (Khumo’s favorite animal) = nkgwe; giraffe = tlhatwe (no, that isn’t a typo, it starts with t-l-h-…I made him spell it several times); elephant = thuo (though it sounded like he said ‘thor’); and zebra = pitse. Khumo also showed me the reeds they use to make the walls of their houses which are different than the reeds they use to make the roofs. He pointed out many of the water bugs (including huge gross spiders) and told me about his siblings. His little sister is named Kelevemang and for short, he calls her Kele (like Kailee!), how cool is that? I think that was actually the topic that made him start talking to me…I asked about his siblings and we finally got to talking about his sister..haha. He also pointed out a dung beetle, which was huge, and all 3 different kinds of praying mantis. He said that if a mantis lands on you it is supposed to be a good luck of sorts; mantises are sacred bugs…that made me feel a tiny bit guilty about the flailing fit from dinner the night before…woopsie. I asked if they ever saw lions on their game walks and he said sometimes, but the grass is too tall this time of year…but, if you listen at night you can hear them roaring. I was skeptical but he was very adamant…he also said you can hear the hyenas yipping. Khumo also offered to show me how to dance Tswana…turns out he really was very nice, maybe just shy…? We stayed out in the mokoro until sunset and we bumped into Khumo’s cousin on the way back so we didn’t get back to camp until about 40 minutes after everyone else. As we were coming into the campsite, a huge lightning storm started…it didn’t rain much but the thunder and lightning were all the way around us during dinner. It was really cool.
We had South African sausage and pap with tomato sauce and corn and cole slaw for dinner. After dinner, all the mokoro polers sang and danced Tswana for us for a while, it was beautiful. After the dancing, most people went off to bed and Khumo came over and told the rest of us to be quiet and we really COULD hear the lions roaring! It was incredible. I asked why they do that and he said that is there way of talking to each other…which makes sense, but why do they talk so loudly? It seems like that would give away their position…he also pointed out some lightning bugs. By the end of day 2 in the delta I was wishing I had spent my whole spring break in the delta…I was learning so much from these awesome Tswana people.
We finally went to bed at about 11…our last night sleeping in a non-campground.
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
We got up at 5am (again…this is starting to become a habit…one I do not like…) and Morotsi took us to watch the sunrise over the lagoon where we saw the hippos the first day in the delta:
We stood there for maybe 20 minutes and watched the sun come up and there were about 15 hippos in the pool making their hilarious grunty noises. After Khumo had pointed out the sound of lions roaring, I could hear it all night. That combined with the Tswana guys talking by the fire made for a very nice background noise to sleep to.
After we watched the sunrise, we wet back and packed up camp. The polers loaded up the mokoros and we headed back to the mokoro station:
These are all the mokoros leaving camp. Khumo is the one in the blue shirt and camouflage shorts on the left in the wooden mokoro with all of Sara and I’s things. We had a lovely little trip back to the mokoro station, about an hour…Sara dozed most of the way but she was rudely awakened when we crashed into the reeds. I heard Khumo laughing behind me and I couldn’t figure out what was going on and he said “I dropped my pole!” then, Morotsi’s mokoro came around the corner and Martin had Khumo’s pole in his hand. Poor Sara was buried in the reeds since she was in the front of the boat but Khumo managed to get us out of the mess and back on track. We finally reached the mokoro station at about 8:30 and said goodbye to all our new poler friends. We piled back into the speedboat and, after we all pushed to get it un-stuck from the mud (it came too close to shore) we headed back to Island Safari and the truck. After a quick lunch and some showers we headed back into Maun for fuel and some more money and snacks for the road. We hit the road and drove for about 3½ hours…once again, never a dull moment in an overland truck…we had been on the road for maybe an hour and we saw a herd of elephants on the side of the road. We all yelled “STOP STOP STOP” and started banging the tables and the windows and they heard us in the cab even though nobody had the intelligence to pick up the microphone…Conrad hit the brakes and pulled off the side of the road thinking there was some kind of emergency and we all piled out to take pictures. Unfortunately…the truck got stuck. Really really stuck. Conrad tried digging it out:
We tried putting wood under the tires, it disappeared in the sand. We tried pushing, it didn’t budge. We were stuck. Conrad and Sarah (tour Sarah, not traveling partner Sara) were more than a little displeased. Finally, a semi truck came along and pulled us out. After our adventurous day traveling we finally made it to our campground, Planet Baobab. The baobab trees are the really big trees you see when you think of Africa that look like they are growing upside down—like their roots are going up. They are really cool:
The campground was quite nice with bug-free bathrooms and a cool little bar. We went down and drank Fanta with the Swedes and Gareth and had a perfectly lovely evening…spaghetti for dinner. The English people call it spaghetti bolognese…spag bol for short. Haha.
Went to bed early again…5am start on Wednesday to get to Chobe national park
More tomorrow my lovelies!
I feel like one of those Christmas radio shows that only does part of a story every night before Christmas…or those old fashioned magazine stories that continued every month…like Laura Ingalls and the Little Town on the Prairie…
Until tomorrow!
Love
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