Dispatch from the Delta: You can�t be proud of what you don�t know
Thalefang Charles | Friday August 25, 2017 16:10
Phew! My third transect of the Okavango Delta with mekoro is in the bag. I am writing this from the banks of the Thamalakane River in Maun. Although I am technically out of the Okavango Delta, there are still some wild sounds here. I hear the sounds of swamp boubous, that charming signature duet of the black coloured barberts, and earlier I heard the grand whistle of the African fish eagle calling.
On the last days when we got to the confluence of the Boro and Thamalakane Rivers at Matlapaneng, we saw a herd of elephants grazing behind the Island Safaris Lodge – an indication that although the maps say we have exited the Okavango Delta, we are still close to the wilderness but just on the ‘gateway’, as Maun is popularly known.
So ever since I got back to this ‘gateway of the Okavango Delta’, I have been enquiring from various friends and mates, over cold ones, their take on why the Okavango Delta is acclaimed as one of the world’s best destinations.
Most Batswana speak of the famed beauty and luxuries of the camps and lodges of the Okavango Delta. They believe the Okavango Delta is chiefly about the amazing luxury that tourists get in the bush. To them it is about the expensive affluent lodges that are only affordable to the stinking-rich royals and seven digit-earning Hollywood stars. And that is where most of my people want to travel. They want to stay in the honeymoon suites that they see spread on glossy travel magazines. They want to toast with imported champagne from inside ivory bubble baths and drape themselves with soft hugging gowns before they slip under white sheets in large beds in the best of the bush suites.
Nearly all the foreign tourists that shared their opinion on the fame of the Okavango Delta did not say much about the top end lodges. To them it is mostly about the abundance of the wildlife. According to them it is the true wildness that gives it its iconic status.
The Okavango Delta is about the free roaming large herds of elephants, the buffaloes, the lions, leopards, the hundreds of various bird species, the plants, the waterways with their territorial hippos and crocodiles, the picturesque orange sunsets and sunrises, the stars that decorate the night skies.
This is because there are few places in the world that are like the Okavango Delta. It is one of the few remaining truly wild places, devoid of human development that gives a glimpse of what nature left alone looks like.
That is why it is a great privilege to have experienced this iconic World Heritage Site with a mokoro. It is with this mokoro that the first human inhabitants of this wilderness learnt to traverse the waterways without disturbing nature.
Experiencing the Okavango Delta minus the lodges has given me deeper knowledge and understanding of this wonderful place than I could have gathered from a few costly nights in the white-sheets.
I have been able to get the unique perspective of the Okavango from the river men that poled and guided us through this wilderness.
I have met its wild cats. They have instilled fear in me for encroaching on their territory (I have a wrecked camera retrieved from the jaws of lions). I have shared narrow waterways with grumpy hippos and escaped unscathed thanks to polers who were experienced enough to know what to do in that situation. I have patiently waited for elephants to give way so that we could pass; a handful have charged at us but many have let us share the way with them. I have listened to therapeutic sounds of the morning birds’ chorus and evening frogs in the river.
With three cross Okavango Delta expeditions in the past three years, I have covered over 1,000km through this wilderness in a mokoro.
It is a total of six weeks of travelling through the Okavango and immersing myself in nature. I have sat down and shared river tales with the people of the Delta, Basarwa, Bayei, Bambukushu and Batawana.
I have seen the Delta from the skies, from the land and from those top end lodges that my people believe make this place what it is. What makes Okavango Delta what is it? I would say it is all about being closer to nature. It is that spiritual connection that only the Okavango Delta can offer. That is what the Delta lodges are striving to offer, an exclusive access to the incredible wilderness. But I choose to be around the campfire with the river men and listen to their river tales than the white sheets that are not in my league. I can therefore attest that this place is ‘our pride’ because I know it. Do you?