My Botswana Safari A Week in the Okavango Delta

There’s a reason why they say a Botswana safari will ruin you for all other safaris. But I never could’ve predicted just how much of an impact one could have on me. Especially as a South African who has been privileged enough to grow up with the bush on my doorstep. But after spending a week in the Okavango Delta, there were two things that stuck with me:

The people make the place.

Eyeroll. It’s a cliché, I know, but once you’ve been to Botswana, you’ll understand how this place gives that saying a whole new meaning. My word, there is some other kind of magic in that Delta water. I didn’t meet a single person I wouldn’t want to be best friends with. Every team member at every camp was a breath of fresh air, made us feel like family, and filled our days with so much joy and laughter. To say I was moved would be a complete understatement. What a privilege it was to share a seat at the table with such brilliant, bright and beautiful people.

Be where your feet are.

There’s nothing like a bush trip to remind us that the world does not, in fact, revolve around us, and that we are, in fact, tiny little specks living on a big, fat, floating rock (sorry to get all existential on you). Talk about a lesson in presence: taking in the moment, being where my feet are, noticing my surroundings, the sounds, the smells, and revering every second as the gift it is. Each new day brought a little more wide-eyed wonder, an ever-growing love for the bush, its animals, and the people who call it home, and a daily shedding of gratitude tears.

Before I get into the details of my trip, if you take away anything from this little piece, let it be those two things. I am, admittedly, a regular partaker in headspins of existential thought, and have never found it particularly hard to be moved to tears, so perhaps I’m a slightly dramatic case study of how moving a safari can be. But I hope it’s abundantly clear that safaris were never just about getting the shot or ticking animals off a list. It’s about feeling completely, wonderfully caught up in something bigger than yourself. The awe, the connection, the gratitude, and apparently, the tears. That’s the magic that keeps people coming back.

I’m Hidden Africa’s “Brand Storyteller”. In layman’s terms, I look after visual and written content. In my first year, I spent about 75% of my time researching Botswana, with a major focus on the Delta. That has looked like days spent scrolling through image libraries and going down internet rabbit holes about camps, habitats, wildlife and the miracle that is the Delta itself. For a year, the lily-laced, twisting channels shaped by elephant crossings and hippo highways, impossibly gorgeous camps, and tales of kind-hearted Batswana lived as a figment of my imagination. So, you can only imagine the excitement and disbelief when I was told I would be going to the Delta. Four luxury camps over seven days. 

It’s worth mentioning here that my best friend from America, Shep, got to come along (on her first safari ever, I might add). Before we had even set foot on a plane, we felt like we’d both officially used up our life’s allowance of dumb luck.

Like all Botswana safaris, our journey started in Maun. After we touched down, we made our way to helicopter transfers like giddy children, sporting the cheekiest grins you’ve ever seen. Whisked away by our Kiwi pilot, our safari had already begun. Face smooshed against the window, and eyes as wide open as humanly possible, I finally saw the Delta for the first time – in all her green season glory. We flew over glistening waterways slithering through inconceivable shades of green, scatterings of villages, and herds of ant-sized elephants marching trunk to tail in single file.

After 30 minutes in the sky, we arrived at our first stop: Tawana, in the Moremi Game Reserve.

We touched down on an open plain in the Moremi, where our guide, Name, was waiting for us (that’s not a placeholder; his name is “Name”). We just happened to be the only guests at Tawana during our stay – a rather major perk to travelling in the green season. Consequently, and much to our disbelief, we were given the family unit. I spent the entirety of our camp tour wandering around slack-jawed, mulling over which saintly figure I must’ve been in a past life to have landed my bum in this much butter.

Fittingly, Tawana (named after Chief Tawana) translates to “lion cub” in Setswana. In just two nights, we counted twelve individual lions. The highlight, without question, was watching a handful of cubs play on a fallen tree, then trailing them straight into what could only be described as a giant cuddle puddle. Heads, tails, paws – it was impossible to tell where one lion ended and the next began, and the low rumble of their playful purrs is a sound I still haven’t found the words for.

If I know one thing for sure, it’s that birder or non-birder, you will leave Botswana a bird lover. Dare I say, fish eagles are to the Delta what pigeons are to New York City? Any available surface area, be it a termite mound or branch, had a black-and-white blob sitting on top of it, singing that unmistakable call. But the bird that truly won me over was the carmine bee-eater – a small, shameless opportunist. These cheeky little buggers were our everyday companions in the Moremi. Dipping and diving around the car in flashes of crimson and turquoise, they gobbled up the buffet of insects our tyres kicked up as we moved through the tall grass. Watching them soar beside us, it was hard not to believe they were there just for us, that we were the chosen ones.

Venturing into the Delta, I found myself trying to open my eyes wider, willing myself to absorb it all better. The fan palms, birds in their millions, and the sound of red lechwe springing through waterlogged plains… it was almost too much to take in. We watched the sun rise and set every day. In the mornings, we bathed in its luminous pink and orange hues, while getting drunk on the smell of freshly trodden wild sage. In the evenings, we watched it dip behind the clouds while sipping Okavango G&Ts. But at least half that magic wasn’t the Delta at all. It was Name. Our gentle giant, all-knowing guide. We hung onto every word he said and felt like the luckiest people in the world to have him as our guide. He is a wonder.

The most special part of being the only guests at Tawana was the gift of really getting to know the team. Sitting around the fire with Name and ET (the sommelier) after dinner on our last night is a memory that I will always treasure. As we leaned back in our chairs, half hypnotised by the constellations above us, they told us stories about their upbringings, families, tribal history, folklore, cultural traditions, societies, and how their community comes together for one another. I went to bed that night in absolute awe of just how wonderful people can be, and completely inspired to be a better human.

And in hindsight (a beautiful thing, isn’t it), maybe that’s the greatest luxury of all. Yes, we were staying in one of the most stunning camps I’d ever seen…with all the bells and whistles. But sitting under stars like that, with people like Name and ET, who shared their stories with so much kindness and generosity, and my best friend next to me, was priceless.

Our next stop was Little Sable. Set deep in the dense mopane forests of Khwai Private Reserve, our short helicopter hop from the Moremi flew us over what I’ll call “the great wall of mopane”, where open plains shapeshift into dense, swampy forest. After being introduced to the team (just more people to love and adore), we were led down a winding wooden walkway to our tent – the family suite once again. Sliding doors opened onto a deck overlooking a field of blindingly green reeds, concealing a sneaky little Delta channel beyond. You’d never know it was there, except for the occasional grunt from the resident hippo wallowing somewhere out of sight.

I won’t lie, after our first evening game drive, my first thought was “Eish, I think we’re going to struggle to see major game here”. Purely because the area was so dense and waterlogged. How our guide, Molls, navigated the roads is beyond me. But of course, I was very quickly proven wrong. The next morning, Molls and his spidey senses picked up wild dog tracks that couldn’t be more than a few minutes old. In about 10 minutes, we were on the tails of three wild dogs weaving through the mopane forest. We followed them for 45 glorious minutes, watching them move from the forest into full-blown sprints, splashing through the floodplains in the hope of taking down an unsuspecting red lechwe. There’s nothing like watching a tracker in action. That combination of intuition, understanding and connection is truly something special.

After lunch and a little siesta, we swapped our afternoon game drive for a mokoro. Our first of the trip! We set out with a slight wobble as our poler, David, propelled us forward. I’ll shamefully admit that for the first few minutes, I didn’t hear a single thing David said. Between engaging every muscle in my body in a desperate attempt not to rock the mokoro, and trying to ignore the hippo grunts reverberating through my chest, David’s wisdom may as well have been imparted to a brick wall. But as soon as we saw the hippos and were moving in the opposite direction (phew!), it was pure bliss! Gliding over reflections of the moody sky and listening to the chorus of croaking Angolan reed frogs, my now-working ears could take in David’s admiration for the Delta and its tiniest creatures.

After kissing the ground and climbing back into the cruiser, Molls very casually (but with a cheeky grin) asked us if we wanted to see a leopard. A female had been spotted walking on the road on the way back to camp. Molls positioned us ahead of her, hoping she would walk straight past us. When she came around the corner, calling, you could feel the whole car hold their breath. What magnificent creatures they are. As planned, she strutted straight past us, and then slipped away into the bush, completely unaware of all of us, left awestruck by her presence.

That evening, we arrived back at camp to no electricity. The recent flooding had taken out one of the power lines. Nothing a Joburg girl isn’t used to, but for the other guests, operating without power was a bit outside their comfort zones. Anyways, we were sent off to bed with our little solar-powered reading lights. Little did we know, the lack of light would open the door to any and all wildlife usually deterred from the camp by light. Shep and I had separate rooms joined by a lounge, and in the faint glow of our reading lights, with the growing ruckus of four-legged somethings just outside our tent, we made an executive decision to share a bed that night.

A hippo chomping down a late-night feast, elephants trumpeting, lions bellowing, and the haunting “whoop”s of hyenas tearing straight through camp. By midnight, Shep and I had convinced each other that the hippo outside was fully capable of climbing onto our deck and using its nose to open our sliding door. I’m embarrassed to admit how quickly I went from assuring Shep there was nothing to worry about to trying to echolocate the emergency horn in our room.

Much to Molls’ entertainment (we think), he got to enjoy the scene of Shep and me trying to mimic hyena calls over breakfast the next morning.

Next was North Island. Our housekeeper, Dee-Nice, set the tone of our stay when our room tour ended with a hug and “okay, love you guys”. It was another home away from home (although far bigger and far more beautiful than my actual home). Our right-hand men were James and Tshepo, who, by the time we had to leave, truly felt like family. They taught us so much about Botswana, the Delta, the concessions, the safari industry’s positive impact in their communities and, of course, more life lessons to take home. James (or, as he referred to himself, 007) was our guide. He was, without a doubt, born for the job. And with his well-worn leather cowboy hat, you could just tell this man had a story for absolutely everything.

We spent our first afternoon at North Island on a boat safari with 007 and Mr T, the boat driver. It’s a completely different experience from a mokoro, taking you into the Delta’s deeper channels. Practically levitating above the water, we glided around the channel’s twists and turns, with reeds rushing past and the wind in our hair (feeling a bit like Bond girls), while keeping our eyes peeled for Colgate, the resident croc. We eventually came to our sundowner pit stop next to a patch of water-lilies. Blooming out of ink-black Delta water, against a wall of vivid green reeds and an angry sky closing in on the horizon, this was a scene not even a certain French Impressionist could’ve dreamt of.

While Shep and I coaxed some of those stories out of 007 (and sipped on G&Ts), Mr T carefully crafted a very special gift for us. Water-lily necklaces. Of course, we were completely charmed by them and wore them proudly all evening, only taking them off to go to bed.

As for the wildlife, North Island was pretty much raining lions. We found lionesses with cubs of every age – easily the most animated pride of the whole trip. Cubs tumbled over each other, ambushed their mothers’ tails, and batted at tumbleweeds like oversized house cats. We left them briefly to check out another pride lounging up a tree, and by the time we circled back, they had vanished. The lionesses had tucked their cubs into a thicket beneath a fallen tree and slipped off to hunt – hidden so well we’d never have spotted them if not for one small cub balancing on a branch, peering out through the leaves.

But two notorious brothers stole the show. The local village named them “Taishwena” (“we don’t like it”) and “Zamana” (“all finished”); you can only imagine what kind of behaviour earned them those names. We found Taishwena buried deep in grass tall enough to swallow the vehicle whole, and very nearly ran straight over him. Of course, he barely budged an inch and just stared back at us, rather irritated that we had disturbed him. Despite the community’s feelings towards him, it was impossible not to fall in love with this huge, magnificent lion staring back at us through the reeds.

On our last morning game drive with 007, we met up with our new guide, Obza. After a quick tyre change, Obza took us to our final stop, Mbamba. The classic Uncharted Africa tents are like stepping back in time. Sitting pretty beneath towering leadwood trees, these paisley-lined tents are adorned with African artefacts, bronze, mahogany and Persian rugs.

We were welcomed to the camp with a family-style, long-table lunch of scrumptious Okavango Bream. Seated next to Obza, we (naturally) bombarded him with questions. A true Delta local, he grew up in the village closest to Mbamba. It didn’t take much time to figure out that guiding was in his blood. He grew up tracking, sent out by his father as a boy to hunt down the culprits of their missing livestock, learning to read the bush before he’d learned much else.

He told us about sprinting home halfway to school after crossing paths with an elephant in musth. And how he and his friends were circled by a pack of “weird-looking dogs” whilst exploring – animals his father later identified, with a stern warning, as wild dogs. The stories kept coming, and with each one, his immense pride for the Delta, his home, became more and more evident. By the end of lunch, we had absolutely no doubt: we could not have been in better hands.

Throughout our trip, we’d been told about the importance and cultural significance of water in Botswana. “Pula”, meaning rain in Setswana, is the name of the local currency, and it replaces “cheers” when raising a glass, a small daily invocation to summon the rains. The word holds so much power that we were even banned from saying it a few times (for the sake of our game drives). “Pula” is seen as the ultimate blessing, the root of all life, riches, and abundance. As you can imagine, on a green-season safari, we were told we were “very blessed” more than a few times.

Despite still being pretty petrified of running into a hippo, we decided we hadn’t seen enough of the Delta’s water world, and switched out our last afternoon game drive for a mokoro. Guided by our poler, Zumba, we were transported into an entirely different world. Gliding over hundreds of lilies, through channels dotted with towering ancient leadwood trees, somehow still rooted in the water. We got to know the Delta on a more granular level and how it provides much more than water to the local people.

Zumba told us about its different plants and how people forage them for food, medicine, and even building materials. He showed us the versatility of the water lily, how it can be turned into fishermen’s hats and drinking straws, and how its petals change colour when pollinated. We spotted Angolan reed frogs, dodged insects, and learned that absolutely everything in this ecosystem serves a purpose.

Eventually, we made our way to a clearing along the channel’s edge, our sundowner spot for the evening. Standing on the channel banks, we sipped ice-cold St Louis Blues and took in our last Delta sunset as ominous clouds moved overhead.

First, a couple of drops dotted the sand, then a whole lot more. The guides quickly packed up, and we scrambled back onto the mokoros. By the time Zumba was on the back, propelling us forward, the heavens had opened. We motored through the reeds at pace as rain hammered down around us. Standing tall above us, Zumba began to shout “pula pula, a eena” (let it rain). The other guides joined in the chant, and so did Shep and I. “Pula pula, a eena” echoed down the channel as we got soaked to the bone. Overcome with joy and disbelief, we got the complete giggles (the kind that usually send tears streaming down your face).

When we hit our launch site, we raced back to the car, still hosing ourselves, and Zumba came to the side of the car to say goodbye. His parting words to us were, “In our culture we believe that if you get caught in the rain in a mokoro, it means that you are already abundantly blessed”. Riddled with goosebumps (from the rain or Zumba’s words, I don’t know), I felt the gratitude tears well up. Ahhh, to be in a place where luck is measured in rainfall, where getting caught in a downpour makes you feel like you’re exactly where you’re meant to be.

After probably the best night’s sleep of my life, we were woken up to the smell of fresh coffee and coconut biscuits, a little something to sweeten the goodbye. Obza took us out on our last game drive, and we had our final bush breakfast en route to the airstrip. After a teary-eyed goodbye (on my end), Shep and I jumped on the plane, and Obza waved goodbye. Of course, I had to partake in a Bridget Jones-esque stare out the window as our tiny plane took off.

Cue sad girl music and dramatic inner dialogue. Looking down at the Delta, in awe of the living planet beneath me, I felt completely overwhelmed with emotion. Overwhelmed by the feeling that we all belong to something much bigger than ourselves. That you could be from the country next door, or from a country thousands of kilometres away, and, sitting on a wooden boat floating down a winding channel, feel a greater sense of purpose and belonging than anywhere else in the world.

It was a week of being reminded, over and over again, of what actually matters. Of just how lucky we are to have places like this, and that we’re even luckier to be able to experience them. What a privilege to be given that reminder, and what a privilege it is to have a job that lets me, in my own small way, pass a little of that magic on.