Home » Botswana » Jul 22, 2004 Xugana Lodge, Okavango Delta, Botswana

Imagine an isolated island on a wide and vast delta waterway, surrounded by a gentle lagoon fed by narrow channels lined with papyrus and tall reeds. Imagine gently waking to nature’s alarm clock as, one by one, the birds greet the growing steel-gray of dawn with a fugue of disparate song melding into a beautiful symphony of the awakening earth. Imagine quiet afternoons, the sun dappled through the trees offering a play of shadow and light, rolling dreamily in the light breeze over the fern covered loam; the lagoon rippling in rhythm with the moving shadow. Imagine that same lagoon reflecting the burnt orange fire of the evening sun dropping to the horizon, the sky ablaze with color. <br />

Jul 22, 2004 Xugana Lodge, Okavango Delta, Botswana

Tom Schueneman
2006-03-27 15:38:52

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local guide was busy studying our surroundings. Alwyn told us that there was little chance of any problem, but should a situation occur, we needed to place our total faith in him and his assistant. If we were told to stand perfectly still, we needed to do just that. If we were told to immediately climb the nearest tree, well, we shouldn’t take a sip of water first while considering the most picturesque tree to climb – we should just get our butts up a tree.

With our attention sufficiently captured, he then took the rifle from its vinyl bag and explained that he only started using a gun on walking safaris when he felt he didn’t really need one. If he had to use a gun at all, “it means that we screwed up”. This comment really impressed me. It made it clear who the visitors were. To bring the point home, he instructed us visitors how we should act while walking through the bush – no talking, single file, and stay together. If someone strays from the “herd”, they will become a prime target for any potential predator. Robert Pelton eat your heart out dude, we’re going on a walking safari and we could be eaten in the process!

Well, okay, probably not, and if we were to be eaten, we’d probably have deserved it due to being incredibly stupid (and not paying attention to our caretakers), but the whole thing did give our little hike a slightly delicious air of danger... Alwyn loaded large, animal-dropping bullets into the rifle and we were off, silently and in single file; our little troop of bipedal mammals.

We really didn’t see much that would have caused us to climb a tree or feel in any way endangered, though I did need to be told to step away from the shore of a small lagoon while studying the eyeballs of a hippo poking up out of the water studying me. I had wandered a little too far from the group... But I wasn’t the only one. As our two hour hike progressed and the feeling of danger decreased, Alwyn had to ...