Day 2: Ghanzi --> Camp Guma, Okavango Delta (450 km) “Nice beef steak for lunch?”

I didn’t sleep well that first night. I slept in socks, which I hate to do, but my feet were so cold they hurt, and it kept me up most of the night. We had a 5am wake-up call to pack up camp and hit the road, so we also took down our tents in the dark. While waiting to heat up the tea kettle for breakfast, our group bonded while engaging in some spastic aerobics to try to warm up, including the jumping jacks and the “penguin” (shoulder shrugging with straight arms and hands pointed out while doing small knee-bends).

Driving through western Botswana gives one a new sense of what it means to be rural. We spent several hours driving through communal farm land which, unlike commercial farm land, does not have fencing to keep the animals inside. Periodically, Manni (our nickname for our guide Immanuel) would honk and slow down to wait for a group of cattle or goats to cross the road or move away from the shoulder of the road. After one particularly close encounter with a large bull, we swerved off the road and I’m pretty sure the tires on the left side of the van left the pavement. It was pretty scary – even in our big van, those horns could do some damage. After pulling the car back on the road, Manni got on the intercom and said, in his heavily accented voice, “We have a nice beef steak for lunch.”

We eventually reached some sort of cattle boundary perimeter – you aren’t allowed to bring any meat across the lines because of foot and mouth disease. To protect against transmission of the disease, I guess, we all got out of the car and wiped our feet on a wet mat. Hmm.

We were delighted to arrive at a small town near our camp just after lunch, where we met the owner who came to pick us up in a massive truck with four-wheel drive. Because of the flooding and the sandy terrain, our truck wouldn’t be able to make it from the town to the camp site.The lodge / reception area was stunning – a large wooden deck overlooked the peaceful, crystal waters of the Okavango Delta. After some coffee and tea on the deck, Manni led us on a “bush walk”. We followed a pair of fresh elephant tracks for a while, to no avail, but did see a lot of beautiful birds. I had no idea elephants could be so destructive! It looked like we were following a tornado trail – entire trees snapped in half, even a small abandoned settlement where two of the houses were partially smashed by an elephant. Some of the group saw some type of rare snake, but I hid at the back of the group behind Matthew, our camping assistant… no thanks.
This next picture is of me and Vipka, the Namibian-German girl studying to be a vet, and my tent-buddy for the trip.

Sunset, drinks by the water front and a dinner of spaghetti Bolognese in our bellies, we all dressed a bit warmer that night and slept quite peacefully our first evening in Botswana.