BootsnAll Travel Network



July 25th, 2008 – Okavango Delta, Botswana to Gweta, Botswana

Today there was an optional bush walk in the early morning.  I opted to pass on that bush walk and get a few more hours of sleep.  Even though I had my ear plugs in, I could still hear rob rummaging through the tent looking for things he needed for the walk.  I tried to go back to sleep, but got up probably some time after 7.  For days now I haven’t had a watch, which I don’t really mind, and we have anointed Sarah as the official time keeper as she is really only one of the few people who have watches on the trip.  After an early basic breakfast and a later brunch it was time to pack up the tents, cooking gear and everything else, load them back on the mocorro’s and head back to the site where the trucks dropped us off two days ago.  The ride back wasn’t as comfortable as our boat was real low to the water and our gear was tightly packed.  It also wasn’t as warm and I was pretty nervous that we were going to sink.  When we got back to the unloading site, it took a while to load the open aired 4X4 fitted truck and we also tipped the polers and guides which was nice.  On the way back to Maun I was starving.  Some people had nuts and we had a few beers for the ride back which took again about 3 hours.  When we got back to Maun we quickly unloaded the special truck and then loaded Marilyn, our truck and headed off for the scenic flight over the Okavango Delta.

I was really excited to do this flight, but when we got in to this tiny 5 seater Cessna I was a little nervous, and it didn’t help that Henk kept asking me if I was nervous.  I mean there is something about being in a tiny plane, but once we took off, my nerves went away and the amazing scenery began to fly by us.  We were only about 350 feet above the ground and over the next forty five minutes I took many pictures and saw so many great animals.  I mean elephants looks more like ants, but on this one flight we saw Elephants, Buffalo, Giraffes and many other animals.  Herds and herds of them just roaming.  At one point the pilot started screaming and pointing over his left shoulder.  At that point I thought we were going to die but after the flight, the pilot told us he was screaming to look at a lion killing and eating a hippo.  He said he was screaming because he was so excited and had never seen that before.  It all went down so fast that I had no idea what was going on and was upset to have missed it, but it didn’t bother me that much.  Before we landed Sarah began to feel sick.  The small plane went up and down quite a bit with the turbulence and you feel it a lot more in such a small plane.  Right before landing she threw up in the baggie they give you in front of your seat, and luckily we got out of the plane before it started to smell.  We all gave her crap about throwing up but she took it well and laughed and smiled.

When we got back from the flight, we had lunch in the parking lot and then it was off to Gweta for the night.  We arrived at night, set up our tents, and most people headed to the bar.  I made it an early night, since I was tired from the long day.



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