Day 17
Door: Elke
Blijf op de hoogte en volg Elke
25 September 2018 | Botswana, Maun
When we walked to the campsite for breakfast we noticed a big pile of all the stuff that we were apparently taking with us to go ‘wild’ camping. A truck came to pick us up and we could not imagine that everything would fit in there. When the crew recognized this as well, they went to get a slightly bigger truck. I still though that we would not even come close to getting everything on board, including ourselves, although I also admitted that I would have loved to be proven wrong and be surprised over finding out that in fact it was possible. And what do you know… it was possible! Don’t ask me how, but everything got in with room to spare for us. Then a big truck with white tourists was driven through Maun, towards the Okavango delta.
The Okavango river is the only river in the world that does not end in a lake or ocean, this one runs into the dessert and then just evaporates. Reaching the outskirts of the delta, we noticed that there was lush green grass again, something we had not seen in a while, however I also noticed that the green was limited to the water line only, the ground would be barren and yellow/brownish again only a few centimeters away from that line. Where does all that water go? If it does not get soaked up by the soil and indeed mostly evaporates as one of the guides told me, then should there not be more rain in the surrounding areas? This trip was just filled with mysteries. Anyway, as the water in the delta is generally not very deep, a common mode of transportation are canoe-like boats called mokoros, that are being pushed through the water by polers.
After leaving the main road and driving for about 45 more minutes, we arrived at the docking area for the mokoros where I thought I saw a colleague from Uppsala in the distance and although he currently works in Cape Town (which is the right continent), I figured it would be extremely unlikely to run into anybody I knew in this remote area on a random Tuesday in September. But when we came closer, I saw that it was him indeed and together we marveled over the unlikeliness of this happening.
After the truck was unloaded and everything was loaded into all the mokoros, we were taken to the campsite by a large number of polers (including a surprisingly large amount of women) in about two hours. Being that close to the water surface really made you feel exposed, but also part of the surroundings. I could not help thinking a little bit about the crocodiles and hippos that could literally pop up a few centimeters next to me and would tip these things over with little to no effort. But I also enjoyed the scenery. These engine-less boats offered a great opportunity for peace and quiet in all this natural splendor, but it seemed that peace and especially quiet is not what most of the others in our group were looking for and it was starting to get on my nerves more and more.
By the time we had made it to our campsite it was quite hot again. We put up our tents and after lunch we were told that we would have a ‘siesta’ till 5! It seemed like a very long time to not do anything, but pretty soon I started to understand the phenomenon and I started to feel much more akin with my fellow people in Africa. Nobody knows how warm it was exactly, but it was over 40 degrees for sure. I just sat there and moved as little as possible, although the unpredictable path of the sun across the sky did force me to move regularly to get back into the shade again. I drank quite a bit (I was impressed with how cold our drinks were in the huge cooler that we had also carried with us), but it was probably not as much as I should have, as I figured that it was too hot to even get up and walk to a toilet, let alone squad over a whole to do my business in the scorching sun. The only thing these temperatures did allow for was minimal amounts of introspection. It came to me at some point, that I would never be jealous of cats again, for being able to just lay around all day and do nothing. At some point I also understood how you could become completely devoid of any ambition in those temperatures. I could not imagine how you could bare to think about anything other than sitting there to take the heat. I realized I would not be able to find the strength to think of ways to improve my life and definitely not to actually get up and do things other than finding ways to make it through the next few minutes. I was thinking about the 5 minute pitch I had given a few days before this vacation for a grant application and I noticed that I was actively hoping that I would not get that grant, just because that would mean that I had to work and for the life of me I could not imagine getting up and doing anything, really not anything at all. (Luckily I found out 4 weeks later that I actually did get the grant and since temperatures in my surroundings were back to Dutch values by that time, I was quite happy with it).
At 5, our polars took us to a neighboring island for a game walk. The first few minutes I thought it was still quite warm, but just as temperatures in the morning go from fairly okay to too hot, they would go in the other direction between 5.15 and 5.30. It did make me wonder how that is possible. Could it be due to all the dust in the air? Even at these hot days, the sky would never be bright blue and the sun would be red for at least an hour after sunrise or before sunset. Could all that dust that is responsible for these phenomena also be able to effectively reduce the heat from the sun in the morning and evening, without working as a blanket? There was just no stopping the mysteries here.
As we were now walking in an area with the big 5 and many other forms of wildlife, I was happy not to get too up close and personal with the local fauna, but we did get to see zebra and wildebeest and we heard hippos. Willem even spotted a giraffe, which we were told was not very common there. In addition to spotting animals, I was also happy to be able to get a little exercise after a full day of not doing anything.
When we got back to the camp, we had dinner and experienced the sounds of the delta at night. I don’t know where it was coming from, but it sounded like there were literally thousands of wind chimes surrounding us for miles in all directions, it was very loud and very magical. During the night, when I was feeling around in the dark to find a bottle with water, I felt an animal pushing its nose up against the tent fabric, presumable foraging for food under our tent, but by the time I had found my glasses to look out and see what it was, it was gone already. The next morning our polars thought it was most likely a jackal.
The Okavango river is the only river in the world that does not end in a lake or ocean, this one runs into the dessert and then just evaporates. Reaching the outskirts of the delta, we noticed that there was lush green grass again, something we had not seen in a while, however I also noticed that the green was limited to the water line only, the ground would be barren and yellow/brownish again only a few centimeters away from that line. Where does all that water go? If it does not get soaked up by the soil and indeed mostly evaporates as one of the guides told me, then should there not be more rain in the surrounding areas? This trip was just filled with mysteries. Anyway, as the water in the delta is generally not very deep, a common mode of transportation are canoe-like boats called mokoros, that are being pushed through the water by polers.
After leaving the main road and driving for about 45 more minutes, we arrived at the docking area for the mokoros where I thought I saw a colleague from Uppsala in the distance and although he currently works in Cape Town (which is the right continent), I figured it would be extremely unlikely to run into anybody I knew in this remote area on a random Tuesday in September. But when we came closer, I saw that it was him indeed and together we marveled over the unlikeliness of this happening.
After the truck was unloaded and everything was loaded into all the mokoros, we were taken to the campsite by a large number of polers (including a surprisingly large amount of women) in about two hours. Being that close to the water surface really made you feel exposed, but also part of the surroundings. I could not help thinking a little bit about the crocodiles and hippos that could literally pop up a few centimeters next to me and would tip these things over with little to no effort. But I also enjoyed the scenery. These engine-less boats offered a great opportunity for peace and quiet in all this natural splendor, but it seemed that peace and especially quiet is not what most of the others in our group were looking for and it was starting to get on my nerves more and more.
By the time we had made it to our campsite it was quite hot again. We put up our tents and after lunch we were told that we would have a ‘siesta’ till 5! It seemed like a very long time to not do anything, but pretty soon I started to understand the phenomenon and I started to feel much more akin with my fellow people in Africa. Nobody knows how warm it was exactly, but it was over 40 degrees for sure. I just sat there and moved as little as possible, although the unpredictable path of the sun across the sky did force me to move regularly to get back into the shade again. I drank quite a bit (I was impressed with how cold our drinks were in the huge cooler that we had also carried with us), but it was probably not as much as I should have, as I figured that it was too hot to even get up and walk to a toilet, let alone squad over a whole to do my business in the scorching sun. The only thing these temperatures did allow for was minimal amounts of introspection. It came to me at some point, that I would never be jealous of cats again, for being able to just lay around all day and do nothing. At some point I also understood how you could become completely devoid of any ambition in those temperatures. I could not imagine how you could bare to think about anything other than sitting there to take the heat. I realized I would not be able to find the strength to think of ways to improve my life and definitely not to actually get up and do things other than finding ways to make it through the next few minutes. I was thinking about the 5 minute pitch I had given a few days before this vacation for a grant application and I noticed that I was actively hoping that I would not get that grant, just because that would mean that I had to work and for the life of me I could not imagine getting up and doing anything, really not anything at all. (Luckily I found out 4 weeks later that I actually did get the grant and since temperatures in my surroundings were back to Dutch values by that time, I was quite happy with it).
At 5, our polars took us to a neighboring island for a game walk. The first few minutes I thought it was still quite warm, but just as temperatures in the morning go from fairly okay to too hot, they would go in the other direction between 5.15 and 5.30. It did make me wonder how that is possible. Could it be due to all the dust in the air? Even at these hot days, the sky would never be bright blue and the sun would be red for at least an hour after sunrise or before sunset. Could all that dust that is responsible for these phenomena also be able to effectively reduce the heat from the sun in the morning and evening, without working as a blanket? There was just no stopping the mysteries here.
As we were now walking in an area with the big 5 and many other forms of wildlife, I was happy not to get too up close and personal with the local fauna, but we did get to see zebra and wildebeest and we heard hippos. Willem even spotted a giraffe, which we were told was not very common there. In addition to spotting animals, I was also happy to be able to get a little exercise after a full day of not doing anything.
When we got back to the camp, we had dinner and experienced the sounds of the delta at night. I don’t know where it was coming from, but it sounded like there were literally thousands of wind chimes surrounding us for miles in all directions, it was very loud and very magical. During the night, when I was feeling around in the dark to find a bottle with water, I felt an animal pushing its nose up against the tent fabric, presumable foraging for food under our tent, but by the time I had found my glasses to look out and see what it was, it was gone already. The next morning our polars thought it was most likely a jackal.
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