From Chobe to Okavango

I’ve never been a particularly big fan of Liz Taylor. I knew she had violet eyes and that she got married several times, twice to Richard Burton. The second time they tied the knot they did it at the Chobe Game Lodge. Weird choice you may think, lost in the middle of the Chobe national park in Botswana… after staying there myself, I totally understood why. The place is spectacular and the service flawless. They’ve just finished building a walking deck where you can peacefully enjoy leisure time relaxing and observing wildlife. That was exactly what we were doing one evening, just after contemplating another stunning sunset, a group of hippos came by and we witnessed an awfully jealous male hippo killing a little baby hippo when mommy hippo wasn’t looking. It happened within seconds, and the poor mommy hippo was left crying all alone for quite a while. That was just a brief example of how close you get to the real life of African wildlife.

Or what about opening your door and finding yourself eye to eye with an antelope? Or interrupting dinner time for a warthog family (so rude!) on your way to the restaurant? It is so unique, that waking up at 5:00 am it is not that hard.., and I am NOT a morning person…although it did take a while for my brain to start functioning a couple of days… it was still worth it ever time… I have met a couple of people that say they are not even a tiny bit interested in doing a safari, they have no idea what they are missing. We almost touched the elephants, saw two lions (probably the same lazy one sleeping under different trees), and took funny pictures of giraffes, who are in fact as dorky as Melman from he Madagascar movie. Plus the scenery is just indescribable.

Chobe national park is the perfect place for an introductory safari, with a luxurious resort, all the services you need, many other tourists, everything well organized, roads properly signalized… But if you are ready to move on, Botswana has so much more to offer… prepare for the Okavango.

 

 

Never in a million years would we have guessed how remote and isolated from everything else we could be… it was amazing….
We flew from Chobe in a light aircraft, meaning a tiny tiny baby plane that can fit only 4 people with a small bag each. We landed on a made up runway (rather a dirt landstrip), in the middle of the jungle, seconds after watching from the air some elephants crossing a pond.

 

We were greeted by our guide and taken to a jeep in which we rode through the jungle for about 20  minutes… and no, were not there yet… we proceeded to jump onto a small motor boat for another 20 minute ride through  lilies and other water vegetation … That is how much in the middle of nowhere Mapula Lodge is located… We couldn’t believe our eyes… right in front of us was a very rustic, but still within the luxury line, lodge, built in the heart of the Okavango delta. We were greeted by the staff (about 20 people, and we were the only guests) and taken to our room. The room was  all wooden, wooden planks from local treetrunks lined both the walls and raised floors of the tree house style rooms. All rooms were built on raise platforms facing the water, above the flood plains at the edge of the Okavango. Every room came equipped with  mosquito nets instead of windows, a private deck, the coolest tin bathtub and an outside shower… yep, outside, in the open air. We were advised not to get out of our rooms after dark without a member of staff and to use the emergency alarm provided (a pressurized canned horn) only in case of an emergency… “what exactly qualifies as an emergency?” You must be asking, and so did we… Our host stopped and looked at us very seriously to answer: “Please, MEDICAL emergency only… an elephant snooping outside your window IS NOT an emergency”…  needless to say we were left speechless…. How cool would it be to wake up in the middle of the night because your heard something and realizing you are being spied on by an elephant? We were not visited by any elephants but we were by some hippos. It was very dark so we couldn’t see them but we could hear them right below our shower.

 
I don’t think there are any words that can possible begin to describe places like this and the peace and connection with nature and the universe that you experience when you look up to the most starry, spectacular sky that you can imagine. You have to be there and see it for yourself to believe it.

 



We had a walking safari, which is kind of scary but equally awesome. You get a very different perspective on the animals and the surroundings. You feel small and vulnerable. We had a couple of boat rides through the lilies to see the colourful sunsets, and a couple of regular game drives… yeah regular… that word doesn’t exist when in a safari.

 If you know anyone else that has been in a safari, you probably know that there is always a story… always one remarkable anecdote… here’s ours: we were riding  our jeep, with our guide and Karl, our tracker ( who by the way, seemed to have some kind of binoculars implanted in his eyes… his eyesight was unbelievable). We… meaning Karl, the tracker, then the driver, then us… spotted a group of elephants with their babies and we got closer… and closer… and closer… until we got closer than what the Mommy elephants thought that was appropriate. They turned around, as if they were about to leave, pushed the babies towards the inside of the bush turned around towards us, lined up, made some threatening noises and started charging against us. The guide began to yell and bang the jeep door to scare them away… which was not as efficient as we would have wanted since they started to advance in our direction, at a pretty fast pace…. We drove away as fast as the jeep allowed us to with a bunch of angry elephants running behind us… we were terrified… holding to the borders of the jeep as strong as we could and screaming for our lives (that was actually Chris, I stayed quite calmed and cool for the whole scene…not.)

They didn’t catch us, they slowed their pace and so did we, but they kept following us suspiciously for what seemed an eternity… We asked the guide and apparently they have encounters like that frequently, and some in which the jeep actually gets turned over or at least pushed back some meters… We were well  satisfied with this amount of adrenaline, no need for more.
I have never considered myself a nature lover, but the experiences and places along this trip began to make me reconsider that statement… at least until we got back to Johannesburg and the city life ;)