Maun, Botswana - Safaris and the Okavango Delta

Beryl Morwesi Andersson and Melinda Victoria Elvenes ready to head downtown Maun. It is a modern Botswana scenario - both are born in Botswana and met in Oslo, Norway - where they work and study. What better way to visit home - two friends rediscovering their home. Friends and family on both sides were happy to meet them and enjoy their fine company.

David Young

Create Your Badge

October Ending Wet

The rainy season has begun in Maun. While the Thamalakane River is dropping fast, it is still at record hights for the last 25 years. How much will local rains help in keeping the fiver full? The floods from Angola will not arrive here until June of next year.

The average rainfalls in Maun for the last 75 years, for the months of October, November and December are approximately 20-40 and 80 mm. We are off to a good start in October. With steady rain falling on the last day of the month, rainfall will be over 40mm. Pula!

Klaas Boll - "Lead me not into temptation, for I can find the way myself."

Afro Trek Safaris is offering every Botswana citizen/resident an opportunity to visit the famous inland Okavango Delta, Moremi Game Reserve and to experience a scenic flight over the Okavango Delta. This is an all in one package of two nighjts and three days. The activities commence from Sedia Riverside Hotel. Click/Link to Afro Trek Safari Tours for details.

The evolution of FaceBook, the premier social computing website, changed forever with the Bon Arrivee of Bon Arrivee. You are cordially invited by Klaas Boll himself to visit the site and become a FAN - join so you will forever be up-to-date with what is happening. Just click on the big Bon Arrivee above. Be there or be square.

In the photo we have Guillaume Kalassa, one of the many Bon Arrivee loyal customers. You will notice he is even wearing the fashionable Bon Arrivee golf shirt. Make his day and give him a quick call at 71923996 - tell him you saw him on the World Wide Web!

While on a recent safari with AfroTrek Safaris, we came upon this young leopard. It was nicely hidden and we assumed waiting for its mother to show-up with some food. Our Safari Guide stopped because of noise that birds were making and we slowly came to realize the leopard was close at hand. We saw other leopards on the safari, but this one was the most relaxed.

Okavango Delta - Into the Bush      Part 2

Our camp the second night is more beautiful than the first. We stop mid afternoon where there is a small seasonal pond in front of us. Life is all about water. Elephants, giraffe, kudu, impala, baboon, hippo, crocodile, wildebeest, and an array of birdlife entertain us. Large marabou storks are fishing along the water's edge for their supper. We start the campfire so that we will have good coals to cook with. Impala have been coming to the pond to drink. They look around for some time before drinking quickly and leaving to continue grazing. One impala wanders into deeper water for a drink. There are at least a dozen crocodiles on the far bank. One of them waits until the impala is facing the other way and quietly slips into the water. The croc comes up behind the impala, grabs it with his huge jaws, and twists it over and over again until it drowns.

We watch as the crocodile drags the impala onto the bank. It starts to chomp away. Other crocodiles move in and a series of fights start. Different crocs are pulling at different parts of the impala. Some retaliating and defending go on, but the situation is hopeless. About six different crocodiles get parts of the impala. In the end, the hunter has to settle for a shoulder.

Twilight is approaching, and we are getting ready for supper. With the sunlight gone, some of the hippos have come out of the pond and are grazing close to us. When the fire dies down enough to cook supper, the hippos move in closer. We throw more wood on the fire to keep them away. The cycle is repeated until we feel comfortable enough to cook.

It is worth the wait. We feast on fillets and vegetables that were simmered in fine red wine. We enjoy the same meal for breakfast the next morning, only the portions are smaller. A herd of about 30 wildebeests takes almost an hour to wander our way, moving at a grazing pace. Something, perhaps a lion moving behind the bushes, startles them, and they all stampede back the way they came.

We break camp when the first elephant comes back for a morning drink. Charlie wants to keep the sun on his left as we head west, back to one of the supply roads to Moremi Game Reserve. After about an hour and a half, some concern is raised that we haven't met the road yet. After stopping for a cold beer, we head for what looks like some opening in the bush. Much of the landscape can look very similar, but we pass a striking, low-level sand crater. The remains of two long-dead trees in the middle of the crater look like two tables waiting for guests to arrive for lunch. It's an eerie setting, but finding the road is on our minds, so we pass up another rest break.

About an hour later, the going is getting rough, with places that are tough to go through. Charlie is now taking an odd glance at the fuel gauge. We know the road has to be close. Indications look good when we come across a set of tire tracks. Charlie gets out to make sure they are not our tracks. They are Land Rover tracks, but not ours. Our spirits are lifted as we continue.

We are making good time because we don't have to worry about getting stuck in sand sinkholes or which way to go. The road should run into us at any moment. Still, Charlie gets out of the vehicle twice to confirm that these are not our tracks. Fallen branches over the tracks convince me. We come steaming around some bushes and out into the open. What do we see, but our two tables sitting in the crater. It took us an hour and a half to go in one big counter-clockwise circle.

We are beside ourselves. We have sticks in the sand measuring shadows and the direction of the noonday sun. Which way is west? Charlie and I are like two ends of the compass, pointing in opposite directions. Ten more minutes in the heat, another cold beer, and we are able to agree on the direction we hope is west, toward the road.

Charlie smiles, puts the brakes on, and we stop right in front of the road. We sit back and put our feet up on the dash and have the best cold beer of the trip. We knew we would find it. When we would find it was the concern. Soon Sally, our Land Rover, is booting down the road like she can smell pavement. We need to get cleaned up, go out for supper, share a few stories of the trip with friends, and find out what they have been doing for the weekend in Maun.

Okavango Delta - Into the Bush      Part 1

Maun is in the north of Botswana and is the capital of Ngamiland. The last 500 kilometers of tarred road arrived in the early 1990s. It has a reputation of a frontier town and a growing list of colorful characters. Some of the old hunters are legends in their own time, although they are a dying breed of rugged individuals. They could take care of themselves and others in any situation. They were often isolated and operated in harsh environments that were hard on people and equipment. In the Maun safari industry some of the famous hunters I have met are Lionel Palmer, Dougie Wright, John Dugmore, Willy Phillips, and Harry Selby. These men are great story tellers and, in their day, were sought after by clients. For an in-depth sense of their life and times I recommend a book about Harry Selby called Horn of the Hunter by Robert Ruark. It is a classic, true African hunting story.

Charlie is a friend of mine. Several years ago, we shared a house. He is a hard-drinking, ebullient, funny man. An opportunity for a two-day trip into the bush with Charlie is not something to pass up. He wants to go toward Moremi Game Reserve for a couple of nights and invites me along. I accept. A trip with Charlie is well known in town as a guaranteed adventure. Maybe even better than Steinbeck's Travels with Charley.

We shop for supplies in the morning, fill up with diesel, have a quick lunch, and head toward Moremi. The trip in is surprisingly smooth. We have seen some game -- giraffes, kudu, and impala. Before we find our camp, I spot a brown hyena. It is lying up to the neck in water and mud. The hyena is waiting for some game to come down for a drink. It is disturbed enough by us that it gets up and slinks away. Supper is eaten and there is a full moon shining. After sharing some stories, Charlie goes to sleep on top of the Land Rover. I sit in front of the tent and have a nightcap.

We break camp at 8:30 and start following the watery perimeter of the delta south of Moremi. Charlie has this customized '68 Land Rover that he calls Sally. When the going gets rough or the sand gets soft, he gives her all the encouragement he can. We are moving through and over bush, like the elephants we encounter. Before lunch and some rough going, where we have to go back, around, and through some rough terrain, it happens.

Sally has almost gotten us out of the heavy going, when a slight miscalculation puts her down. We are out of the vehicle looking at the two wheels on the passenger side. They are in a water hole made by elephants, with the weight of Sally resting on her undercarriage. Charlie starts to swear, gets out the 30kg jack, and goes to work on the front wheel. I am watching out for lions and elephants, gathering branches to put under the tires.

Charlie becomes demon-like, and the air becomes purple. The jack is not in top mechanical shape. Twenty minutes of jacking the front end results in us getting the jack stuck in the mud. The two of us pulling, slipping, staggering, and cursing finally break the suction and get it free. Charlie turns to me and says, "Well, Dave, at least when we are doing this, we are not doing anything else."

We move to the rear wheels, which appear to have a more severe tilt than the front -- the other back tire isn't even touching the ground. I continue to collect wood, and Charlie continues to swear at the jack because it won't go up or down. Looking at the angle of Sally's resting spot and the amount of water and the sizes of the holes, I'm not too optimistic. I'm thinking we may be spending the night here, or longer.

Charlie's expansive Yorkshire vocabulary is down to three words. I've collected wood and am taking a smoke break. Charlie quiets when the jack starts working again. I jam some of the wood under the back wheel and it all but disappears into the mud. Then the jack starts to slip sideways. The next thing I see is Sally sliding uphill! Sally is tilting on a 30-degree angle, sliding uphill. Darnedest thing I'd seen in a long time. We get inside and drive away, amazed at our good fortune.

 

-  
A look at water flowing into the Hippo Pool, Maun, Botswana on July 9, 2009. Just after the video was shot we discovered that water was finally flowing into the 5th pipe. Along with catching some of the people fishing off the 'Old Bridge', we were fortunate to catch the inimitable John Allott doing his own research. Maun's most well known pilot is seen walking over the 1st pipe.

This is also the same day as the Boronyane River started to flow into the mighty Thamalakane River.