16 December 2016: Botswana- Maun

               P175 later, I was on the 12 hour bus from Gaborone to Maun. And it actually left on time! Amazing. Out the window, all I saw was scrub brush, scrub brush, goats, cows, and more scrub brush. My butt was so sore. Three long-distance bus rides in the same week was not so ideal for my body. I arrived in Maun, got some food at the grocery store, then caught a combi taxi to the part of town where the rest camps are. I arrived at Old Bridge backpackers via, yes, an old bridge, and it was raining. I really just wanted to take a warm shower after the lovely all-day bus ride, but the showers were roofless, so I would never have gotten dry. I just said screw it; I could handle being stinky and at least somewhat warm instead of being clean and shivering. I cooked some eggs and peanuts for dinner and went to sleep in my trusty, somewhat leaky tent.

                I hung around the hostel for a couple days until I couldn’t stand any more. I got pretty bored because, compared with South Africa where there were tons of other people to meet and hang out with, there aren’t so many in the more booneyish places. I really wish I had a travel buddy for the more boring times like this.

                It finally cleared up after raining nonstop for a few days. My tent only let a few drops through, monstly at the front flappy part where the mesh touches the outer fly layer. It’s been hard to sleep, being perpetually moist, but most days I took a nap to counter that. Last night, I heard a super loud CRACK CRACK CRACK that turned out to be a giant branch falling off a tree and almost crushing another tent. Good thing it wasn’t even close to my tent.

                I signed up for a mokoro (canoe) trip on the Okavongo Delta, the main attraction here in Botswana other than game parks like Chobe. I had enough animals, so I decided to go to the Delta. I signed up through the hostel, and they took me and a middle-aged South African couple in one of those safari cars about an hour to the launch point. I got out of the car and into the boat with my guide, also called a “poler” since they use these long wooden poles to propel the boats along, kind of like the Botswanan version of a Gondolier. He poled the boat through the watery channels, pointing out all the different birds, frogs, and huge termite mounds along the way. Termite mounds here lean westward because of the wind that always blows from east to west. Who knew?

Day lilies

Chillin on the delta

Poler traffic jam

                We got out at a huge island and went for a walk, where we found four elephants and were able to get about 100m away. We also saw some red antelope and some kudu in the distance. The guide said that normally, one day trips don’t normally see many animals, as the animals are more out at dawn and dusk. Also, the off-and-on rain probably chased them off into the bush. He told me about lots of plants, like a flower with an eye-dropper-like squeezey thing that was used to cure eye problems, the fan palm with which people make palm wine, and he even made me a “delta necklace” out of a day lily.

My guide scouting out animals, standing on a termite mound

Delta necklace

                After lunch, he let me try to pole the mokoro. It took so much balance! I almost “went swimming” a couple times trying to balance on the skinny boat while trying to move and steer the thing. We started heading back, even passing a hippo in the water, and then he started booking it through the water because the rain was coming “now now.” Then, soon enough, it was absolutely pouring. I was huddling under this poncho thing they gave us, but I still got soaked. That part was really fun, actually, in the rain, with the drops hitting the water all around me. Then it was a wet and bumpy ride in the safari car back to the hostel, and just went to bed early because I was wet and cold and wanted to wrap up in my sleeping bag. 

Before it started raining