Okavango Delta and Mukoro canoes

We woke for another bloody early start - to head to our next excursion. This was three days 'real' camping in the Okavango Delta national park. Us and all our gear needed to be taken up the river in these bloody tiny canoes (Mukoro's)....I must admit I thought they would be bigger. About as wide as your ass, 3 meters long, and hand carved from some tree - with Josie and I and all our gear and our poler (Bee)....we had about 1 inch of clearance off the water to the edge of the this thing.

He then whisked us easily 2 hours though this narrow waterway in the reeds - with the water never more than a meter deep. It was an amzing trip - seemingly effortless (although he did get a good sweat up) and it was bloody hot. We were well baked by 2 hours of full force African sun...

We made camp on a small hump of land that packed on to some arid plains. The water in the delta was drinkable - but you wouldn't think it. It was clear, but barely flowed and it was not really a river, more a path cut through the reeds so the locals could fish and move about. Not sure if they have Bilharzia there or not - our guide says no, but doctors tests in 2 months should prove the truth. So it was bloody hot, so we were able to pole these Mukoros over to a little swimming hole to escape the heat !! Poling these things was not very easy at all - but Josie and I made it safe and dry after 20mins to travel only 40m - only to jump in and get wet:)

We then had a 2 hour game walk in the afternoon - which was amazing, even though there were no animals - there were plenty of tracks and you really felt miles from anywhere. The next morning - surprise surprise - we got up at the crack before dawn - to go on another game walk. This one went for 5 hours. We saw loads of animals, elephants, hippos, zeebra, etc and seeing them on foot is very different from the safety of the car. We needed to be aware of wind direction etc to make sure none of them took exception to our presence. The last hour was unbearable in the heat - it must have been near 40 and our guide was determined to walk us into the dirt....

But we survivied (just) for more swimming and lunch. I even managed to go out with one of the locals fishing....they catch hundreds of tiny perch like fish that can't be fun to clean and scale as they are about 10-15cm long. The men get around this problem by getting the women to do this work !! This is a good strategy I will try myself - but don't like my chances with Josie :(

Our last evening was spent around the camp fire - with the locals singing and dancing - and us trying to...we were more successful at getting pissed !! Aussies just cannot sing.