Day Five - Gweta, Botswana

Even though we were given a few extra minutes to sleep this morning, I couldn’t fight the clock that had been set in my body and I was up a few minutes before sunrise. I decided to embrace the moment, “carpe diem” if you will, and go enjoy the beautiful sunrise while I could. I know before long my journeys in Africa will be a distant memory so I watched the sunrise before the others awoke. The peacefulness around me was unparalleled and I wish I could come back to that moment in time whenever I needed it. But alas, we only had precious few hours left in the Delta, so we got up and got going. One last morning walk was in order before we packed up, so Sparks led us back into the bush from our campsite, hopeful to see some of the animals we had yet to see. As the walk went on we saw some of the usual suspects, Giraffes, Wildebeests and Zebras and just when were about to turn back to head home we saw an Elephant. Seeing an Elephant on foot was like nothing else, the sheer size of the animal is always staggering but when you’re just standing with nothing around you and there is a wild Elephant, you can truly understand how big they are. So we admired as the Elephant ate some leaves for a breakfast, until we had seen enough and decided that we too would go enjoy some breakfast.

Packing up for the mainland

Moyo had been preparing bacon and eggs for us while we were on the walk and we returned to camp, which had almost been all packed up, with a nice aroma of eggs and bacon. We ate, finished packing up camps and filled the Mokoros with all of our belongings. It was another beautiful day, and we planned to get out of the Delta before the heat became too much to bear. So we pushed off for the last time around 10:30 and headed back for the village. Wes and I were together for the final ride, as usual and we enjoyed the final views of the Rain Trees and reeds as we hit the main ravine in the Delta and then pulled up to the village. Our truck was waiting for us and we quickly unloaded from the Mokoros and loaded onto the truck. We said our farewells and thanked all of the polers and bushmen for all that they did for us before we all hopped on the truck and headed back to Maun.

Me & *** back on the mainland

Having enjoyed our few days in the Delta, we knew that today was a bit of a travel day, in order to get to our two main destinations that remained. So, we were allowed to shower for the first time in a few days and get a quick lunch in us before we hit the road for Northern Botswana. We stopped in Maun to go shopping for any creature comforts we desired, which usually weren’t available other than chocolate or alcohol. But, we enjoyed them nonetheless and we began our journey in the truck to the north.

The village where our polers lived

We arrived at our camp for the night around 5:00, with plenty of sunlight to set up camp and walk around for a bit. They had a beautiful pool at Planet Baobab, which we took advantage of to cool off after a day of driving through the heat. The area we were staying in was known for its Baobab trees. Baobab trees are some of the oldest trees on earth, some dating as old as 3500 years. We walked around and explored some of the humongous trees which seemed like something out of a fairytale or Lord of the Rings, before heading back to camp for dinner. 

T-Bone Steaks for Dinner

Moyo was preparing T-Bone steaks for dinner tonight and it couldn’t have come at a better time. With a morning of driving on the horizon, it was a perfect time to enjoy some beers and some good food, since we could sleep on the ride to Chobe in the morning. So we sat around the fire, under the stars and the Baobab trees, eating our T-Bones and drinking beer deep into the night, until the tiredness overtook us and we couldn’t stay awake any more.