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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regularly stop to let stragglers catch up.

Though we only saw some warthog and elephant in the distance, and those hippo eyes gliding above the water, (only? Sheesh! Listen to me!) the hike was a pleasant one. It felt good to get some exercise and get a little blood flow going. Yesterday’s awakening to the feeling of sure Malaria Death was long gone.

The island was mostly flat savannah with tall grass turned golden in the dry winter sun. Low scrub brush was interspersed with acacia and mopane trees; their bare angular limbs outlined against the deep blue sky called out to the tree-hugger in me. And, of course, there was our island’s namesake palm trees standing tall in the distance.

I think our requirements of staying in single file and not talking was starting to wear a little thin on some in our group, especially the boys, who did contain themselves pretty well despite being fourteen years old and no doubt overrun with energy – I seem to remember such a state so very long ago. While not everyone shared Jayne and my enthusiasm for planting our feet on the ground and walking, the hike didn’t last too long and soon we were on the boat heading back to our little home island and waiting brunch.

After brunch I acquired ten more rolls of film from the little curio shop, giving me a fighting chance of having enough to last me for the rest of the trip (about 860 exposures now), and a nap. One reason I love Africa is because people take naps in the early afternoon. Not long, monster naps; just enough to clear away the cobwebs – fifteen or twenty minutes and I’m good to go.

This afternoon our goings took us down another series of waterways off the lagoon toward the small grass airstrip and the “mokoro launch”. A mokoro is essentially a dugout canoe. Originally made of wood, they are now manufactured in fiberglass. While not giving the same feeling of authenticity, they save trees – so fiberglass ...