Okavango Delta – Botswana’s Garden Of Eden

It’s been described as one of the world’s last great surviving wildernesses, as Africa’s most beautiful oasis, as the river that never finds the sea, as a wildlife paradise and as a unique ecosystem of global significance.

To Conservation Corporation Africa, it is “the most unexpected of wonders: water in the desert, spreading like an outstretched hand over the ‘thirst lands’ of the Kalahari, its green papyrus-fringed banks and fertile, floating islands nothing short of miraculous in the heart of the desert.”

It’s the Okavango Delta in north-west Botswana – the world’s biggest inland river delta and southern Africa’s largest wetland.

Anyone who has visited the 12,000 sq km Okavango, and then tried to immortalise in prose or poetry what they’ve seen, soon find themselves reaching for their Roget’s Thesaurus, for over-worked adjectives like ‘beautiful’, ‘stunning’ and ‘breathtaking’ simply do not do justice to what Botswana Tourism (UK) has described as “probably the most pristine wetland in the world.”

Strictly speaking, the Okavango is an alluvial fan rather than a delta, for the river discharges its water not into a sea or ocean but into the parched Kalahari sands where it literally makes the desert bloom.

The vast wetland is divided into two distinct areas: the oxbow lake-dotted upper panhandle through which the river meanders and the lower, delta-shaped alluvial fan.

One of only two permanent sources of water in Botswana, the Okavango rises in the central and eastern highlands of Angola where the high annual rainfall or around 1,000 mm can generate an 11,000 million cubic metre ‘flood’ into the river catchment.

This seasonal inundation of the delta is slow and gentle, the ‘wave’ taking four months to travel 250 km from Mohembo in the upper panhandle to Maun at the edge of the delta. The submerged area varies in size from less than 50,000 sq km during dry periods to more than 100,000 sq km in wet periods.

The Okavango’s varied habitats - grassy floodplains to papyrus reed-beds and lagoons and channels to palm islands – together support myriad creatures great and small, including buffalo, cheetah, elephant, giraffe, hippo, hyena, leopard, kudu, lion, roan antelope, wild dog, wildebeest and zebra.

With flora and fauna at every turn, not surprisingly wildlife-watching is the top tourist activity in the Okavango. Nature-loving visitors flock to the delta from all over the world to see for themselves what they have only previously watched in National Geographic and other TV wildlife documentaries.

There are many ways of observing wildlife in the Okavango Delta, from traditional game drives – generally aboard specially adapted, open-top, 4WD Land Rovers and other vehicles - to safaris on foot, horseback, elephant or boat or in a helicopter.

Walking safaris, in my view, are one of the most exciting and productive ways of observing wildlife. The most important thing for tourists to remember is: trust the guide and do exactly as he or she instructs.

I went on a walking safari with Ker & Downey safari guide and former game hunter Doug ‘Dougie’ Wright while staying at a Footsteps across the Delta mobile camp.

Dougie is a superb tracker and naturalist as was clearly demonstrated on a three-hour bush walk. He could not only readily identify which animals had left any given set of tracks but could also tell us whether they were old or new. He is also extremely adept at reading animal behaviour, instantly knowing whether an animal is being aggressive or passive.

“It’s not something that can be learned from a textbook,” he told us as he slowly and very carefully bent back a twig to reveal a small but highly venomous sac spider. “It is something that comes from years and years of experience – of watching, understanding and remembering.”

One of the most serene forms of transport is the mokoro or native dug-out canoe - the traditional way of travelling through the maze of riparian highways and byways.

For tourists who don’t want to get quite that close to nature, there are houseboat holidays. I stayed briefly on Okavango Houseboats’ Ngwesi Houseboat in the panhandle of the Delta. Tourists can watch the passing wildlife, try their hand at angling or simply soak up the tropical sun on deck.

Fishing can be exhilarating, even for non-anglers, especially when one is amateurishly trying to reel in a ferocious tiger fish whose mouth is lined with scalpel-sharp teeth!

When it comes to accommodation, the Okavango offers everything from the simple to the sumptuous – tents under the stars to luxurious, fully-serviced lodges where visitors drink from crystal glasses and eat with silver cutlery.

The Okavango Delta is a wildlife wonderland – a veritable Garden of Eden that must be preserved not just for its own sake but also for the benefit of future generations who are likely to inherit an increasingly impoverished world.