One morning while in the Okavango, we went for a mokoro ride. A mokoro is a canoe that historically was made by hollowing out the trunk of a large, straight tree, such as an ebony tree. It was powered by a boatman with a pole. The river was moving slowly and we were moving slowly so it was a leisurely trip. We spent about seventy-five minutes out on the water. Our mokoro ride was very cool and relaxing so it was a nice change from our land rover and the heat and dust.

Cory and I are enjoying our ride in the river. We were required to wear the life vests but the water was not very deep. We asked about what to do if we capsized, since there were so many crocodiles in the water. The answer was to just lay still until we were rescued. They said the crocodiles respond to movement and splashing. I understood but it would have been hard to lie still in crocodile infested water.

We hadn’t gone too far up river when our guides stopped poling. They stood still for several minutes. We asked what was going on and they pointed up ahead. If you look in the water up ahead, just before the grass bank and just to the right of the termite mound, you can see a hippo’s head sticking out of the water. That concerned our guides.

We got just a bit closer but came to understand their concern even better. It wasn’t just a hippo but a momma hippo with a baby. That was our sign to turn around and go back down river. One other point is that a hippo can easily turn over a mokoro and that is the worry in the Okavango, not crocodiles. In the past, locals hunted hippos from mokoro’s, so hippos learned that the best defense was a good offense and now the hippos tend to turn them over.

Cory was just kicking back, relaxing, and enjoying the ride. It was a great morning in the Okavango.

Vicky was doing the same thing, but in a different mokoro. You can see that the river narrowed in places and at times we were poling through the water weeds. Even the water weed areas were interesting as there was lots of insect wildlife including some bright red dragonflies and other interesting critters.