July 25, 2024

After a delicious breakfast we put out our duffle bags to be transported on the boats to our next camp.

We climbed on to Greg’s boat, and set off on our journey to the next camp, moving slowly south towards Maun.

We stopped along the way to look at birds.

as we traveled down the river.

Apart from cattle there really wasn’t much in the way of animal life, but we did see some crocodiles and a couple of hippos poked their heads up out of the water but ducked down again as soon as they saw us.  Some folks saw a sitatunga, but it quickly disappeared into the bush before I could catch a glimpse of it. However, we did see an elephant!

To do some exploration of the Delta we left the main channel of the river and headed into the smaller side channels.

I was convinced we were going to get lost, but Greg seemed to know what he was doing. However, the side channels got narrower and narrower, and the water got more and more shallow. We had to go very slowly lest we got stuck.

That’s exactly what happened to Clinton’s boat, but James jumped out to give them a shove, and they were soon on their way again.

We found a shady little island for lunch and were treated to yet another delicious meal.

After lunch we sat under the trees for a while, and I was totally in my happy place. The temperature was just right, I could hear the birds all around us, I could smell the bush. I would have loved to take a nap, but it was not to be. Greg rounded us all up and we climbed back on board our boats and headed down the river again.

I continued to be thankful that it was so easy to get in and out of the boats without getting wet or falling over. Hippos hadn’t tried to attack the boat, and the crocodiles seemed to be more interested in sunning themselves on the sand bars at the curves in the river than having a tourist for dinner. Life is good.

However, a new fear did arise. We had been asking Clinton about what the scariest thing that had happened to him in the bush was. Well, it turned out he could probably write a book about all the times he had cheated death. One example was when a cobra had tried to climb into one of his client’s boats, and he had tried to prevent it from doing so. The snake ended up biting him, leading to a spell in ICU and near death. The folks in the other boat yesterday had been very excited when they saw a black mamba swim by them. What would happen if a black mamba tried to join us in our boat?  What do you do if you see one doing that? Can you fight it off with your backpack and push it into the river before it kills you? I had thought of many dire scenarios, but not death by snake.

As we wended our way down the swiftly flowing river, I would dearly have liked to take a nap, but I felt I needed to be alert and on the look out for snakes.

What I saw wasn’t a snake, but a brown object in the water that was not being swept away in the current, it seemed to be fixed there. Someone else saw it too, and asked if it could be an elephant. Unlikely I thought, but Greg turned around to take a closer look, and it was indeed an elephant. A very dead elephant, standing there upright in the water with just the top of its back above the water. It was weird looking at its underwater head and tusks, Greg determined that it had been a young adult male, who apart from the fact that it was dead, seemed to be in good health. The only conclusion he could make was that possibly one of the local villagers had been upset that it was causing trouble and had shot him in the abdomen. The elephant was probably feeling quite poorly after this and had gone down to the river for a drink, but being weakened by his injury was unable to extricate himself from the sandy bottom on the river and get to dry land and had drowned.

Luckily one of the members of our group is a county coroner. We asked him what his thoughts were on the time and cause of death, but he was as baffled as the rest of us, which was really not surprising. It was such a sad sight. I hate to see a dead elephant.

When we arrived at our camp for the night, Hippo Island, our tents were already in place, and we could smell our dinner cooking on the open fire. Greg took a boat to the nearby village to pick up supplies (we were running out of tonic water and other essentials) and the bag belonging to one of our group that had been left on the plane in Shakawe.

I went to check out our tent and was surprised to see fresh hippo footprints right next to it. I was not thrilled about this, especially as this is called Hippo Island. Clinton reassured me that there would not be any hippos tonight, so I felt better about it until I saw that James tent was on the move because he was concerned that he was in the hippo path. Hmmmmm.

The camp site was really pretty and very secluded, and I love the way the table was set for dinner!

We didn’t go on a sunset cruise, but I did catch a glimpse of the sunset from the camp. Greg reassured me that we will see a magnificent sunset tomorrow.

After dinner when we were heading back to our tent trying to avoid falling into a hippo footprint, Brian took my hand and lead me away from the canopy under the trees to an open field. He told me to look up. There was the Southern Cross right overhead. You couldn’t miss it. But then I saw the Milky Way. It was vast and so bright. A truly magical sight. It felt so good to be back in Africa.

I went back to our tent and could hear the hippos around us snorting and grunting, but I couldn’t see any from the tent.

Fingers crossed that they would stay away tonight.