The main area that we wanted to see in taking our trip to southern Africa was the Okavango Delta in Botswana. The Okavango is a large inland delta where the Okavango River reaches a tectonic trough in the central endorheic basin area of the Kalahari Desert. No water from the Okavango Delta flows to any sea or ocean. The water that flows into the Okavango either evaporates or transpires. Moremi National Park is on the eastern side of the delta. Our wilderness camp was on private land that bordered Moremi National Park. The Okavango is a blend of woodlands, floodplain, wetland, and grassland.

Moremi National Park was originally the Moremi Game Reserve which meant that the native people such as the Bushman were allowed to live there. It has since been designated a national park. The Okavango Delta is over 6500 square miles while the Moremi portion is around 1900 square miles. The Okavango is in the heart of the Kalahari Desert. The sand in the Kalahari is very fine. That means that the dust rises substantially when driving around in the Delta. Our two land rovers never went together to ease the dust on the second vehicle. To give you an idea how dusty the Kalahari can be, we were out driving one morning after a nice thunderstorm. Despite the ground being wet, dust was still rising behind our land rover as we drove along the road.

The Okavango Delta is a big area and in the eastern portion, we were not near the largest water areas. That plus this was the end of the dry season and the second year of severe drought there. Still the rivers that we saw had plenty of water in them for the wildlife, including the hippos and crocodiles.

We only had to cross one bridge on our stay in the Okavango but we crossed it four or five times. I would say that they used an interesting architecture to build this bridge. It was a pole type bridge but not like any that I’ve seen before in my travels. Nonetheless, it was sturdy enough to keep us from having to swim with the hippos and crocodiles.

Woodlands occupied a large portion of the land in the Okavango. For that reason, we would find new and interesting areas all the time since we could not see too far ahead. Hippos were in most rivers, even the smaller ones. There were probably a dozen in this pod.

Red Lechwe are antelope and we saw them in large numbers in the Okavango. They graze on aquatic plants and seemed to spend most of their time near the water in wetlands or grasslands.

Despite being a delta area, the Okavango Delta grasslands and woodlands support a large number of animals including large animals, such as these elephants. The area floods in winter giving the lands plenty of water to grow grass and there is always water for all the animals.