Hippos sound like Jaba the Hut laughing

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Trip Start Feb 01, 2007 Previous
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  Sepupa, Botswana
Sunday, April 15, 2007

Greetings from the Okavango delta!  This is a unique spot where the Okavango River comes from Angola, through Namibia and fans into the middle of Botswana.  I guess I expected to see something that looks like when you spill a glass of water onto sand, it just goes away.  But this is a quite lush place!  There is tall grass and pypays everywhere.
We biked up into Namibia then through the Caprivi Strip, which is the small finger of Namibia which connects it to the Zambezi River.  Those four days of biking were ho-hum, mostly straight and flat with scrub and trees dotting the landscape.  Of course, we have to remind ourselves that we do not have to go to the office, we're biking in Africa and we have enough chocolate cookies to get us to the other end!  We saw a lot of "Danger!  Elephants!" signs but only one lonely Elephant way off in the distance who turned his butt to us when we stopped and tried to get a photo.  Loads of Elephant dung though

01-Mind the elephants

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We had heard of the Polers Trust from our Lonely Planet book and some other people we met along the way.  Sounded like fun and a good way to support the local people.  We biked down to Sepupa Botswana and had fantastic luck that there was a ferry leaving for Seronga, where the Polers Trust is based out of, the next morning.  Ferries are hard to come by and the access road to that side of the river is sand.  Not bicycle friendly.    We were lucky and got to ride in motorboats with a load of German tourists (lots of German tourist here in Namibia, it being an ex-German colony) through the maze that makes up the Okavango River.  It was quite the trip, a thin opening in the reeds and tall grasses that weaves all over the place over to the other side.  The river looks straight on a map, but because of all the grass it's not a straight shot.
The polers boats, Mokoros, are fiberglass replicas of the traditional wooden boats made from the trunk of trees.  They decided that if they were to have enough boats to run a business that would be a lot of big trees to cut down.  The Mokoros are a lot like a sculling shell, but with a flat bottom.  The poler stands in the stern of the boat with his long pole and pushes us along.  We gave it a try and it's quite hard to steer.
Off we set the next morning with our poler, Let, into the delta

02-Monkeys at the camp

.  The smell of the water lilies was amazing and having them all blooming was beautiful.  Our path to the island where we'd be spending the night was a mix of open water and weaving through the reeds.  After landing and setting up our camp we went for an island walk and saw lots of animal poo but only saw birds.  We could hear the hippos; they sound like Jaba the Hut laughing.
Late that afternoon we got back in the Mokoro to see if we could see animals coming out of the water where they sensibly hide during the heat of the day.  We startled a group of hippos still lounging in the water and one of them jumped up out of the water and showed us his molars.  Let backed us up quickly and we watched them hang out for a while.  Most of the time all you can see are two little eyes and ears sticking out of the water.  When they do surface it sounds like a whale clearing its blow hole. 
Next morning we went for another animal walk in the cool of the morning.  We got to see an owl and other colorful birds and a small group of Elephants.  We were lucky to see wildlife because there is such high water, the animals can go to very many places not just the old standby watering holes. 
After returning to Seronga, we hitched a ride in the back of a pickup back to Namibia on that sand road, then another ride to Rundu and finally a local bus to Grootfontein.  We're starting to run out of time to bike all of the distance so we're looking at spots that are more boring to take a bus through.
We're now in Tsumeb (lovely town) and renting a car to get up to Etosha.  I wonder why they don't let bicycles into the park?
Oh yes, you think we're nuts for bicycling across southern Africa?  We met a French couple who are WALKING from Mozambique to Angola.  They are spending 7 months walking about 30km/day.

Post your own travel photos for friends and family More Pictures

03-Nabmibia sunset	04-Riding in the Mokoro	05-Bee eater	06-Elephant foot print
07-Water lilly	08-A view from the Mokoro	09-Hippos!	10-Polers
11-Elephant!	12-Squirrel	13-Bird!	14-Ants!
15-Egret!

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