After an incredible few days in Namibia, we were leaving the beautiful scenery behind and crossing into an equally beautiful Botswana. We had to cover more than 500km to get to the border and closer to the Okavango Delta – one of our primary destinations in the country.
This meant a good few hours on the bus with not much in-between. We used the opportunity to go through the multitude of photos we have taken in Etosha; it is an impossible task to select the best ones. In-between we played games of Trivial Pursuit or charades, which were at times pretty hilarious.
The “play area” on the bus where we spent many hours playing charades
But the road was long today. I wish I took a photo of this, but our trip was summed up by a Nando’s billboard on the side of the road. The billboard had an arrow to the left showing 330km and one to the right indicating 473km to the nearest Nando’s with the words: “Are we there yet?”
We eventually got to our camp and got ready for a great evening around the fire. We also swiftly remembered Botswana is mosquito country and the mossies drove us inside our cabins before long.
Our guides preparing dinner around the fire
While the rest of the group went on a bush walk this morning, Adrie and I decided to have a bit of a sleep-in… until 8am. Oh how things have changed! 8am is normally super early for me and here I was enjoying a late sleep!
The drive into Maun was again long and uneventful. Luckily, a few of us had an exciting, optional, afternoon activity to look forward to – a scenic flight over the Delta. We would fly in a 6-seater Cessna plane at about 500ft so were likely to see some wildlife.
It started off with very little to see and I wondered if we had just wasted our money.
Views over the Delta from the plane
As the disappointment started to set in, we saw some elephants. Then some more. Then a herd of 50+. Suddenly things got much more exciting! In-between all the elephant action we also found a tower of giraffes nibbling on a tree.
A tower of giraffes nibbling away
The Delta itself was pretty cool with its complicated network of rivers and cut-through streams. The pilot gradually took us lower. And before we realised it, we were barely skimming the treetops. Then he went lower still and I am sure our wheels were skimming the water itself while we gave a fly-by of a massive heard of elephants! I don’t know who was more surprised – us or them!!
After the flight and seeing all the hippos, elephant and buffalo herds from the air, we could not wait to see them from the ground.