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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the evening before our arrival, we were just “the bomb” (once again, youth talk – why, when I was a kid, saying “the bomb” meant something quite different). We enjoyed cocktails by the fire and a fine dinner full of good food and spirited conversation; Then some coffee back by the fire and off to our turned-down, mosquito-netted beds.

This evening we are joined by two executives from the company that owns this lodge, one being the actual president of Desert & Delta Safaris. They are accompanied by their twenty-year-old Canadian bush pilot. Hearing young Tom the bush pilot talk of flying brought me back to my flying days back in ‘Nam... Oh sorry, I mean my student flying days back in San Carlos. Bringing in my stealthy Piper Cherokee to a smooth landing... Oh, sorry, I mean flaring a little too high and stalling the plane while it was still ten feet off the ground. Hey, anybody can get a plane off the ground and keep it in the air – it’s the landing that gets a little tricky. (Do I need to remind everyone that a landing is really nothing more than a controlled crash? I didn’t think so...)

Anyway, I needed to brag that I used to fly, leading Nancy and me into a private discussion of flight school, terrorists, and September 11th. Engaging, if not entirely pleasant, so we changed the subject.

That whole world seemed a million miles away as the drums sounded announcing that dinner was ready. We all headed off to the dinner table to listen to our nervous host announce the menu for the evening. Another fine meal.

Botswana sits on a mantle of sand three to four hundred feet deep. Underneath all that sand the earth is alive with seismic activity; earthquakes measuring 6 or 7 on the Richter scale happening every few weeks. Now, I’ve experienced a 7 earthquake. One in which the epicenter was some seventy or more miles away from where my frightened, shaking carcass lay waiting for the end to come – talk about a rude awakening.

In Botswana, you don’t feel it so much when the earth starts to shake. But one edge of the delta that has been dry for years suddenly floods, and another part that has always had water just as suddenly dries up. Such is the consequence of the rumblings beneath our feet. Jayne and I travel 12,000 miles only to remain on unstable ground. It really feels like home here, I guess. Perhaps there is no stable ground anywhere.

Anyway, this was the general conversation at the after-dinner fireside as the president of Desert & Delta Safaris and the other locals discussed the current conditions of the delta and how it all effected business.

From here Bill (our very own president of Wilderness Travel Adventure) entered the conversation and the intricacies of doing business in Botswana were thrashed out, as well as international business dealings in general. In a country where there is little privately held land, it did seem to be a challenge, but one our new friend of obvious substantial wealth, even by American standards, bore well.

This was all pretty interesting stuff, but whether from the smoke wafting my direction, or some other cause, my nose was exploding and I was soon compelled to retire for the evening.

Jayne and I made leave of the assembled guests and Alwyn escorted us back to our chalet.

Now I am here with you, gentle reader, in the chill of the late hour, the mysterious sounds of an African winter night lulling me into a dreamlike haze; where imagination meets reality.

But I’m not really imagining this, am I? This is the Africa that works.

More tales from the bush soon...