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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all the way I say!

The mokoros accommodate two riders with the “poler” standing up at the rear to propel and steer with his pole (think Venice – kinda). The job of handling the pole is much harder than it looks, and it didn’t necessarily look that easy. The most daunting thing, I think, was just maintaining balance. After I crawled into my spot and situated myself, just turning my head to the right gave a sense of impending wetness with the mokoro seemingly just looking for an excuse to capsize. That we didn’t is a credit to “Socks” our mokoro driver, who kept the craft expertly balanced despite the newbie tourists in his charge for our hour-long mokoro ride. Not only did he keep us dry, he propelled and steered us expertly through the water. While essentially a pretty tourist-y thing to do, a mokoro ride affords a perspective not available even on a small boat. Our mokoro sliced through water chestnuts, lilies, and reeds higher than my head and softly brushing my face. Today has been a good day to see the landscape from a vantage point other than that of a Land Cruiser. Socks was attentive to us and chatted us up about things we already knew, thanks to Alwyn, and some things we didn’t know. It was interesting to hear how his family was forced to flee Angola back in the seventies due to the political strife of that country. He considers Botswana his home now, but does miss some of his relatives that remain in Angola. He has been able to visit them in Namibia, but those occasions are rare. When we told Socks we were from San Francisco, I got the distinct impression that he hadn’t heard of it before. In fact, the largest town he’s been in is probably Maun, with a population of 35,000. He spoke of how people can act inhumane toward their fellow humans in towns of such size. I would not wish him a visit to a large American city – it would probably break his heart.

Socks was aware of America, of course, and our overbearing ...