Where the wild things are
On our way to the Okavango(!)…not being rescued.
Hello again, everyone, and welcome to my latest post of miss-adventures! The last (but definitely not least) stop on our safari was the Okavango Delta, one of the most popular destinations in Botswana. Throughout our stay here, I noticed again how different this is from Chobe and the Kalahari: there was so much more water than in the Kalahari, but not nearly as many animals as in the chock-full Chobe National Park.
If you would like to know how we got here, we took a small plane from the Kalahari to Maun, a medium-sized airport located in, well, Maun. From there, we took a helicopter (first time for us, miss-adventurers sisters!) to our lodge. We stayed in tents like in the Kalahari, but instead of a little tent that could only fit 2 people (we had two tents), we got a tent that was bigger than the actual house that we reside in! I will spare you most of the details, but it basically had an enormous deck with two couches, 2 big lounging beds, two cold plunges, and two ginormous rooms with beds (obviously), EACH with a bathroom, 2 showers, 2 bathtubs, a deck, and a sitting area (each room was identical). Our guide’s name was Noah, and let me tell you about the adventures he led us on…
The best part of safari (well, at least based on my sister’s and my opinion; I don’t know about my parents) is definitely the animals, and in the Okavango we saw some pretty special ones, so here are the best ones:
A highlight of the Okavango was the number of giraffes we saw. One day, we saw more than 20 of them, roaming around and munching on leaves.
We also saw hippos, which we could see from the deck at our lodge and also from our room (above).
Another of the coolest sightings was the lions. There was a pair of females with 4 lion cubs, which we found because Noah saw a bunch of giraffes all staring at the same place. He later explained that sometimes giraffes, instead of running away, will keep watch so they don’t become the lion’s dinner.
On another day, my dad spotted two male lion brothers, because, like before, he saw a heard of impala staring at something behind a bush.
After seeing the lions, we sped off because another guide spotted a cheetah! We ended up following this majestic cheetah for over two hours, in hopes of seeing it kill an impala or anything else. Unfortunately, this cheetah should probably go back to Hunting School (made up, don’t worry) because it was having no luck chasing them. When the cheetah disappeared into a bush at one point, we tried to go around to follow it some more, but our jeep got stuck in the mud (another guide had to pull us out), and we called it quits.
Another rare animal we spotted (get it?) was the wild dog! There were posters all over the airports looking for photo sightings of these endangered dogs, so we were very excited when Noah told us he knew of some in the area. One catch was that we needed to drive like both a monster truck and an F1 car to get to them before they headed out on their evening hunt.
Lastly… I promised you a picture of a warthog, so here it is! This one especially uses some nice hair conditioner 🧴
Beyond the fauna, we did a variety of activities, including riding a mokoro, which is a traditional boat that the Botswanan people used to ride around the Okavango Delta. We got a lily flower necklace, and at the end, we saw a hippo skull! This was also the only time we ever saw any of our guides carrying a gun, which meant that there might be scary creatures in the water… *DUN DUN DUNNNNN*. The scariest creatures for us were actually the bugs. One lady put on one of those mosquito head nets, which are kind of like beekeeper head coverings; Mia and I put on lots of bug spray.
Another highlight of the Okavango was Tsodilo Hills. We took a 1-hour helicopter ride there, during which we got to experience something called a sky safari (also made up), where you try to find animals from the sky, like elephants, hippos, giraffes, impala, and other things like that. When we landed, we took a hike that was more of a walk at the bottom of a big hill, where there were rock paintings from a long time ago that were made out of different rock pigments and blood! Another thing that the hill is known for is its multicolored rocks, which look like it was raining the water you use to clean your watercolor brushes (a personal opinion). On the way back, our heli pilot took us to a little island to have a drink in the middle of the delta. There was a big herd of impala grazing on the island where we landed, but they all got spooked and ran away into the water when we arrived.
Riding in a mokoro! Do you see Mia sporting her lily flower necklace?
Eye spy…🕵️
Cheers!
Our safari was way different from what I had expected. For one thing, I was surprised that the animals we saw were even closer to us than at a zoo, so close that we could touch them (if we wanted to get our fingers bitten off)! Another thing is that I imagined Africa to be all desert-like with flat trees (look it up if you don’t know what I mean), but instead we saw a lot of diverse landscapes, from huge waterfalls covered in mist, rivers, vast empty deserts, swampy wetlands, in addition to the endless plains with the short flat trees that I pictured.
Taking notes on the Okavango with a view
After our safari ended, we had a long journey that took 45 hours door-to-door from Atzaro to Pleasanton, and in the middle we had a 7-hour layover in Singapore, which we used to explore the city’s food and architecture. And now that’s all for Africa! See you next time!
Goodbye, Africa, hello Singapore!
Okavango staaaaaats!
Fun fact: The cave drawings in Tsodilo Hills are made out of two colors: white (minerals and bone) and red (minerals and blood), and their ages range from a few centuries to 24,000 years old.
Where we stayed: Atzaró Okavango
How 2 pronounce: oak-uh-von-go, aught-zar-oh, mah-oon (make sure it is two hard syllables)