From Victoria Falls to the Skeleton Coast – Day 4: Analysing excrement in the Okavango Delta

We were picked up for our trip to the Okavango Delta at half past seven in the morning and arrived at our destination – one of the mokoro stations at the NG32 Concession – some two hours later. The journey was not particularly pleasant. Our car was one of those large vehicles with open sides, and the wind chilled us down to our bones despite the blankets out driver gave us. Once we had left Maun, there were a few occasions that filled me with anxiety, like when our driver had to shift gears to pull through a particularly sandy part of the road, or when we slowed down to cross a narrow wooden bridge.

At the mokoro station, we were met by our team of boatmen; beside Wei and me, there was a family of three, so all together our group required three boats, locally called makoro. A mokoro is a type of dugout canoe that is propelled by a poler standing at the back. Traditionally, the boat was made of wood, but this material has mostly been replaced by fibreglass, which the polers complain makes the canoe sway more. This refrain accompanied us throughout much of the morning, as the wind was especially strong, and the polers kept being blown into the reeds despite their evidently strong arms and acute navigating experience. What reassured me was that a lot of the time, the water was so shallow that I could feel the boat scraping along the bottom, which meant that even if we were blown over, I would have still been able to save my camera.

The beginning of our tour was not very auspicious. We made a few stops to look at water lilies and a few smaller wading birds like lapwings and the jacana, which is referred to as the Jesus bird because its long legs make it look as though it were walking on water. The only highlight within this first hour and a half was a herd of red lechwes grazing farther away from the shore.

When we slid up to the shore of an island, I was glad the boat was light enough to allow us to walk directly onto dry land. After taking out our picnic cooler, we commenced our walking tour of the area. Our boatsman-guide had the unfortunate habit of picking up the faeces of animals and crumbling them in his hand to demonstrate what the animal had eaten, but at least he had the good sense to do so standing downwind from us. The first animal we saw was an elephant. It was drinking water behind some bushes on the opposite shore, and we soon spotted the heads and ears of several hippos sticking out of the placid water surface on its right.

Walking farther, we passed several massive termite mounds, but they all appeared uninhabited. Our guides said they did not like their clients to come too close to these empty mounds, as they are often taken over by snakes and feisty lizards. They did not say so, however, until we had spent a few minutes standing beside them. We also came across a little trail of light brown termites carrying twigs and bits of grass, though we could not discern their origin or destination. Intentionally making a downwind loop from the larger game animals, we were able to draw closer to two herds of wildebeest. We pushed our luck when we tried to approach a herd of lechwes, which all promptly picked up and left.

Throughout the journey, the guides recounted various facts about the animals we saw. Most of them were things I had heard before, but I was amused by the several stories the guides told – apparently unaware that they were contradicting each other – about why the zebra is the national animal of Botswana. According to the first, admittedly facetious account, the zebra is Botswana’s national animal “because our president was the first African man to have a white wife.” The second story was that the shape of a zebra’s forehead resembles a diamond, which is Botswana’s major source of wealth. I forget the third story, but because it was the most unremarkable one, I believe it was probably closest to the truth.

Following our picnic, we returned to our makoro. We were luckier this time round. We came across a large bull elephant and had to back out of the canoe trail between the long grass to let him cross. Then, we spotted a large herd of hippos on the opposite bank of a larger water course and kept a similarly respectful distance from them. There were also a few other birds we had not seen before, including a stork and an egret.

I was quite tired by the time we returned to our hotel, but I was determined to make a little hike around the compound, as we had been told the place was frequented by kudus and other (mostly unaggressive) animals. Beside a few birds, however, I did not see anything. We were luckier the following morning when, on our way out of our hotel, we saw three giant kudus just off the side of the road.