Okavango Delta

Okavango Delta is a wetland paradise, a labyrinth of lagoons, lakes and hidden channels located within the arid Kalahari Desert. The delta is an area of unbelievable natural beauty, one of the largest inland deltas in the world with a diversity of wildlife which includes lions, elephants, hyenas, wild dog, buffalo, hippo and crocodiles which congregate with a teeming variety of antelope and other smaller animals like the warthog, mongoose, spotted genets, monkeys, bush babies and tree squirrels. From the air, the rich mosaic of land and water looks like a perfectly constructed puzzle, but it is on the spectacular waterways where each year flood waters from the Angolan highlands come down into the Kalahari desert spreading over a vast area creating a wetland paradise that supports a huge diversity of flora and fauna including swamps, reed beds, flood plains, vast papyrus beds and long stretches of clear water, filtered by the sand so that it is fine to drink. The heart of the Okavango Delta is the Moremi Game Reserve, an area of land that is mostly dry throughout the year. On its circumference however are hundreds of palm fringed islands are truly untouched and deserted offering some of Africa’s last pristine game viewing environments. The true Okavango Delta experience however is in a makoro, a dug out canoe in which people calmly punt around the surrounding waterways and channels in complete silence, providing the best opportunity to see the wildlife undisturbed. The birdlife in the Okavango Delta is unsurprisingly superb with many of Africa’s rarest birds taking residence in this waterland paradise. Predators follow the herds with water going lion and good numbers of leopard ever present and even cheetah when the floods recede. The annual flood in the Okavango Delta peaks in the dry season. Traditionally game viewing in the Delta improves at high water as the animals are concentrated on the islands. When the water recedes animals concentrate on the floodplains where they feed on the new grass. Moving, mysterious, placid, gentle and beautiful, from a wide and winding channel it spreads through tiny, almost unnoticeable channels that creep away behind a wall of papyrus reed, into an ever expanding network of increasingly smaller passages These link a succession of lagoons, islands and islets of various sizes, open grasslands and flooded plains in a mosaic of land and water. Palms and towering trees abound, throwing their shade over crystal pools, forest glades and grassy knolls. The Okavango’s water is remarkably clean and pure it passes through very sparsely populated areas on its journey from Angola into Botswana where the Okavango is located. Very few of the camps in Okavango can be reached by road and visitors will be flying by light aircraft to the camp of their choice. Ends

Lifestyle

Okavango Delta