No Fixed Abode: On foot safari

Sun 10 Jul 2016 - Mokoro trip to Chief Island

Taking an outside shower in the dark was quite a novelty and all to make sure we were breakfasted and ready in time for our truck to take us to the village where we would meet our Mokoro poler who would take us around the waterways. The winter morning was still chilly and in the open sided truck we were bundled up in long trousers, fleeces, our SA jackets and woolly hats. We left Audi camp in a beaten up old Land Rover truck driving along the main road for a short while before to head down to the village. We stopped at this junction to pick up a young woman hitchhiker who needed a lift to the village we were heading to. The route was a bumpy ride with deep sand tracks through an endless landscape of bushes and trees and an hour later we had been shaken awake to arrive at the waters edge and be greeted our poler, Damara, a young looking man.

He suggested before we left we took a bushy bushy (pee) and then helped us into the mokoro canoe. Traditionally these are made from either African Ebony or Sausage trees but this one was fibreglass one. We clambered in sitting on the floor and Damara pushed us off into the Delta. It was very old canoe with pieces of the bodywork broken off and as Yvonne soon discovered leaked water just were she was sitting. Damara produced a sponge and diligently tried to mop up the pool as we went along.

Damara was studying to become a level 2 guide which would enable him to work with one of the many lodges based in Maun to be a guide with the safaris within the Moremi game park. He needed to pass his driving test before he could sit the guide exam and was saving up for his driving lessons. He was the sole breadwinner in the family taking care of his mum and younger sister and brother. His main job was selling the fish he caught and supplementing his income with the poling whilst practising to be a guide. He was extremely knowledgeable about the river, plants, birdlife and animals and we were constantly asking him questions. We learnt so much from him about African wildlife and about his culture and home life.

After poling around across the lagoon in a strong breeze we then meandered along inlets bearly a canoe width wide encountering elephants decimating the reeds and water lilies, one in particular flapping his ears and raising his trunk at us, which we knew was a first warning. Damara calmly retreated and all was well.
We arrived at Chiefs Island where we left the canoe to take a walking safari for a couple of hours and before we set off Damara made it clear this island had wild animals roaming around, lions, elephants, rhino, buffalo and all of these could potentially be a threat to us, so we listened to his advice of what to do in case we encountered one of them byt keeping down wind and following his instructions would make things safer. As we stepped over countless piles of spelt from hippos, elephants (rather large ones it would appear!) and rhino, Damara led us to an open area where several giraffe and zebras were grazing, this time not watching them from a car through binoculars, but standing metres from them. What a highlight of the day.

As we returned to the canoe we learnt how to identify rhino and hippo foot prints, what sex the elephant was from their spelt, how to make a rope from the palm leaves along with Damara’s point of view on the Botswana economy and government and how he envisaged passing his driving test and guide level 2 by the end of the year.

The return journey in the canoe was peaceful with just the sounds of the small waves lapping on the bow, the pole being placed in the water and various bird song. To prevent a recurrence of wet trousers Damara had laid a thick pile of reeds in the bottom of the canoe for us to sit on and this did the job. Whilst saying goodbye to Damara he taught us three different types of handshakes we’d seen many of the black guys use and this amused him very much. We clambered back up in to the land rover, dropping Damara off at his village and we bumped our way back to Audi camp where we prepared a small bag each ready for 6 days on safari, wild camping around the Moremi, Savuti and Chobe national parks with a guide, driver and cook, all to ourselves.

No internet for awhile then!