Okavango, Botswana: where the mokoro is king

​By Roxanne Reid
Flying in to Xigera Camp in a small plane is a chance to get an aerial view of the wonder that is Botswana’s Okavango Delta, its mosaic of islands, water channels, floodplains, swamps and game tracks. You might even see herds of elephant or buffalo spread out like miniatures far below. But once you land, the mokoro is king.

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That the Delta was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2014 gives a hint of its special character. One of only a fistful of inland deltas in the world, it's filled by floods from the Angolan Highlands some 1000km to the north. Here in Botswana the land becomes as flat as a flounder and the clear waters fan out over some 15 000 square kilometres.

Flying over the Okavango

On Paradise Island, among palm, fever-berry, leadwood, knobthorn and sausage trees, lies Xigera Camp. It’s so remote that in the early flood season our journey took us first by air, then by land and finally by boat, to find staff standing on the bridge next to the jetty to welcome us with song.

Xigera as you approach from the water

The fire deck

Xigera (pronounced kee-jera) was easy to fall in love with. The lounge-bar-dining area was large and open, with views of the water and trees from every angle. There was a pool deck and fire deck – a good place to warm up in the early morning. But I lost my heart to the star deck, which jutted out from the tree cover to give an unobstructed view of the night skies.

The pool deck

Our Xigera guides Go Bateng (left) and Spongy Makgetho

We were at the bar one evening getting that safari cliché, a gin and tonic. But there was nothing clichéd about what happened next. Only ten metres away a leopard slunk along the boardwalk. He left his footprints in the sandpit built into the bridge so you can read the ‘newspaper’ of who has come by during the night. Then he padded silently across the bridge, blinked over his shoulder at us and disappeared into the bush on the other side. It was a reminder why you need to have a keen-eyed guide to escort you after dark.

Our luxurious tent; note the artwork on the bed to welcome us, made using beans

Elevated boardwalk to our tent

To get to our tent we walked along raised boardwalks where squirrels romped among the trees. Our deck overlooked a giant termite mound, a stand of mokolane (real fan) palms and some water where red lechwe came to drink.

At night we enjoyed the Okavango lullaby above the rustling of the trees – the lilting call of spotted hyena, the chinking of fruit bats punctuated by the prrt of the African scops-owl, and long reed frogs calling from the water. When we woke we watched the first light tiptoe into the sky and eavesdropped on African fish-eagles and hysterical redbilled spurfowl.

The view from the deck of our tent

We quickly settled into the rhythm of the wilderness, where our days were an odd combination of mad excitement and hushed serenity. Excitement when we saw more fish-eagles and African jacanas than we’d ever seen in one place before; serenity as our guides poled our mokoros through the water channels among a giant tapestry of water lilies, water shield plants and vlei ink flowers to find a jacana’s nest or a long reed frog perched on a reed waving in the breeze.

Water shield plants (left) and a vlei ink flower (right)

Water lily

Mokoro safari
Guide Spongy Makgetho told us the mokoro was traditionally made from the wood of a sausage tree, jackalberry or sycamore fig. ‘But the tree might take many years to reach the right size and then the mokoro only lasts about five years,’ he said. ‘Now with the growth of tourism there’s a worry about deforestation, so the government has decided they must be made from fibreglass.’

Black crakes cheeped in the reeds when we stopped to watch elephants ripping up papyrus stalks. ‘They love the white part at the bottom but discard the green part, which is very fibrous. People use that part to make mats,’ said Spongy. He gave us a piece to taste – as refreshing as cucumber but spongier in texture.

Elephant chomping on papyrus

Yet another fish-eagle called from a dead tree. A cisticola chirped from the reeds. No other sound but the rhythmic splash as the guides poled the mokoros forward. Spongy was in the lead and we followed with guide Go Bateng. He poled smoothly, the only hiccup coming when we tried to cross a current and the mokoro rocked from side to side.

The guides said it takes about a week of falling into the water to master the art of standing up and poling without taking a swim, so it’s not an easy skill to learn. I thought Go did very well despite passengers who wriggled around like worms on hot ashes to look at every passing coppery-tailed coucal or squacco heron.

Guide Spongy Makgetho poles his mokoro

After a morning of mokoro magic, we landed at a clearing under a jackalberry tree where the staff had set up an Out of Africa bush brunch at a long 20-seater table. Checked blankets hung over the backs of safari chairs and there was a feast of yummy food. Such unexpected treats made every day in the Okavango an adventure.

Table ready for a bush brunch near Xigera Camp

Xigera staff jumping for joy at the bush brunch site - just because they can

Foreign object on the airstrip
In what seemed the blink of an eye, our two days were over and we were on our way back to the airstrip, squeezing in sightings of saddle-billed storks and a small herd of Burchell’s zebra along the way. We waited in the shade for a few minutes, watching for the plane and checking that no animals wandered on to the airstrip.

Light aircraft safely landed on Xigera's airstrip

Just as the plane was coming in to land, a pair of duelling impala galloped on to the scene. One chased the other on to the landing strip so the pilot had to abort at the last minute, regain height and circle around for another attempt. It was rutting season and the rams were so pumped up with testosterone that they couldn’t think about anything but dominance, putting themselves in danger from both planes and predators.

Spongy went running after the impala, shouting and waving to chase it off the airstrip so our plane could land. And that’s not something that happens at Heathrow or JFK, is it?

No, this is the Okavango, one of the most exciting and sought-after wilderness destinations in the world.

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