Spending a morning poling through the Okavango Delta in a mokoro with guide Spongy Makgetho was one of the best moments of our Botswana safari. From our perch just above the water level we floated among water lilies and watched fish eagles, African jacanas, malachite kingfishers and a long reed frog. We also found out more about the guide who likes to learn.
By Roxanne Reid
Spending a morning poling through the Okavango Delta in a mokoro with guide Spongy Makgetho was one of the best moments of our Botswana safari. From our perch just above the water level we floated among water lilies and watched fish eagles, African jacanas, malachite kingfishers and a long reed frog. We also found out more about the guide who likes to learn.
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By Roxanne Reid Okavango Delta, Botswana. It’s a UNESCO World Heritage Site, a mass of water channels, floodplains and islands teeming with wildlife. It’s also a wilderness far from civilisation, so everything you need to run a camp there – from soap to fresh food ingredients – has to be flown in on a small plane. By Roxanne Reid For 12 years Warona (Wax) Kebabope worked as a ranger and environmental education officer at the Khama Rhino Sanctuary, a community-based wildlife project near Serowe in Botswana. Then he got married and he and his wife began looking around for somewhere they could work together. By Roxanne Reid When you arrive at Ngoma Safari Lodge on the western border of Chobe National Park, the view from the main deck will blow your mind. It looks out over the veld, a baobab tree and a waterhole towards the Chobe River. If you’re lucky when you stay here, you might meet the tree man of Ngoma. By Roxanne Reid When you stay at unfenced camps in Botswana’s Okavango Delta – that special wilderness sanctuary for wildlife – chances are you’ll meet a wild animal or two on your walks around camp. At Chitabe Lediba we enjoyed a visit from an elephant, a large-spotted genet and a few tree squirrels. If you work there, you might have some hairier stories to tell. By Roxanne Reid If you’re really keen on wildlife photography, especially in Botswana, you may have heard of Wilderness Safaris guide and photographer Ona Basimane. His photos have appeared in publications like Peolwane, Discover Botswana and Travel Ideas, and he was a guest speaker at the Wild Shots Wildlife Photography Symposium in South Africa in 2013 and 2015. By Roxanne Reid If you visit Xigera Camp once the floodwaters have arrived in this part of Botswana’s Okavango Delta, the last section of your journey will be by small boat. Here in a pristine and remote wilderness you’ll find camp staff gathered on the bridge above the jetty to wave and sing their welcome – a delightful custom at Wilderness Safaris camps. By Roxanne Reid Once you’ve been out on one of Chobe Game Lodge’s electric safari vehicles or boats, you might be inspired to find out more about the eco efforts of this lodge in Botswana. And if you go behind the manicured lawns, stuffed sofas and relaxed guests to the bowels of the lodge, where all the work and environmental activity happens, chances are you’ll get to meet Albert Ndereki. By Roxanne Reid During our five-week adventure in Botswana we met many interesting people, from knowledgeable guides to chefs, barmen, camp managers and others working in tourism, as well as photographers and independent businessmen with a story. I’m going to share some of these as part of a short series called Voices of Botswana. Here’s the first, about Xigera’s smiling chef. By Roxanne Reid The Namushasha Heritage Centre in Namibia’s Zambezi (formerly Caprivi) was opened in 2014 to showcase the history and traditions of some of the people of the region. To get there, we walked along a riverside trail from the Namushasha River Lodge but you could just as easily make a stop on your way to or from Kongola. |
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AboutI'm an independent travel writer and book editor with a passion for Africa - anything from African travel, people, safari and wildlife to adventure, heritage, road-tripping and slow travel. Categories
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