The Okavango Delta, to my mind, should rank as the eighth wonder of the natural world. It is primeval paradox - an idyllic wetland in the middle of a desert. The great Okavango river flows south from the highlands of Angola, across the Caprivi and into Botswana- to be simply soaked up by the Kalahari desert. The Kalahari is the largest continuous expanse of sand in the world, yet this section of its forms a vast, lush oasis thousands of square kilometres in extent- home to the most astonishing proliferation of bird, animal and aquatic life. Aptly called the 'Jewel of the Kalahari', the Okavango delta fans out over the sands like an intricate necklace of emeralds and sapphires glinting in the sun. Viewed from the air it is awesome; seen from the waterways it is magical.
I was recently hunting in the Kalahari at the invitation of the Hainaveld Conservancy. As they also offer fishing and photographic safaris from their houseboats on the Okavango, they flew me to Seronga, where we spent a couple of days cruising the waterways, fishing, and relaxing in the unique serenity of this verdant paradise. It was my first on-the-water experience of the swamps, and it is everything the coffee-table books make it out to be. Brian Marsh tells me there is a wry saying among professional hunters in the Delta: 'The closest a PH will ever get to heaven is a dug-out canoe safari in the swamps… without clients'.
But first, let's go back in time a tad. It is thought that the Okavango, Chobe, Kwando and Zambesi rivers once flowed as a single massive waterway right across the Kalahari, then joined the Limpopo to finally empty into the Indian ocean. Then, about two or three million years ago, earth movements caused slight ripples in the flat crust of southern Africa, forming two raised rifts, the Bakalahari Schwelle and the Zimbabwe-Kalahari Axis, thus diverting or halting the flow of these rivers- a blockage that formed a vast lake covering much of present day Botswana, but which later disappeared. You do not need to be a geomorphologist to see this- if you fly over Botswana in a light plane it is quite obvious that it was once covered with water which gradually dried up, the myriad of ancient shore-lines of the pans leaving a distinct paisley-like pattern at varying levels over the entire surface.
The Boteti (aka Botletle) river is thought to be a remnant ot the great river, as its valley is far too deep and wide for the volume of water it now carries. In times of exceptional floods, the Boteti will still occasionally reach the Makgadikgadi pans in the east, themselves a relic of the great Kalahari lake, each being about 100km long by 50km wide. Why did this massive lake disappear? The generally accepted cause was further movements in the earth's surface-the flat Kalahari tilted just a smidgen and the water drained off- possibly into the Great Rift Valley, which runs from just north of the Kalahari right through Africa to the Red Sea. This also altered the flow of the rivers running into the lake, cutting off its supply, and climatic changes played a further role. The lake is thought to have last been full about 35.000 years ago, then its level dropped by some 25m about 10.000 years ago. There is evidence that the lowest levels of the lake, the Makgadikgadi pans, had a substantial amount of water in them as recently as 1500 years ago.
The Okavango river continued to flow into the Kalahari from the northwest, and its annual floodwaters fanned out over this vast, flat sandy region, forming the Delta or 'swamp' much as we know it. At one time its waters filled a huge lake at the southern-most end of the Delta, known as Lake Ngami. Floods-waters still reach there, but Lake Ngami is now very much smaller than it was even just 150 years ago when it was first seen by white men. Credit for the discovery of Lake Ngami in 1849 has generally gone to Dr. David Livingstone, but the truth is, it was a joint effort with William Cotton Oswell, without whom Livingstone could not have made the journey.
Livingstone was a young, unknown missionary posted at Tshonwane, north of present day Mafikeng. Having gained but a single convert during his seven-year career, he concluded that resident missionaries were ineffectual, and decided he was destined to be an itinerant missionary, carrying the benefits of his medical training to the remotest parts of Africa. Actually, he just loved to explore, and provided very good at it- brave, determined, tough and tenacious. He contacted Oswell- a man of almost unlimited means, whose one passion in life was hunting. Livingstone implored Oswell to join him in an expedition through the Kalahari to find a great inland lake of which he had long heard rumours among the local Africans. Oswell agreed, but the plan took two years to come together. Livingstone was also forced to ask Oswell to pick up the tab for the expedition- two wagons, eighty oxen, twenty horses, supplies, a guide, twenty servants and a pack of dogs. Oswell brought a hunting buddy, Mungo Murray.
They set off on 1 June 1849 and trekked north through the Kalahari, following the beds of streams long dry. A month later the guide had them lost, and after four days without water, they met a Bushwoman who led them to the Boteti river. To their amazement, it was flowing inland, in a north-easterly direction, and not towards the Atlantic ocean as expected. This gives some idea of just how flat the Kalahari is: the local people explained that the Boteti carried the overflow of Lake Ngami- later in the year, when the level of the lake fell, the same river would flow in the opposite direction!
Later they reached the junction of the Boteti and Thamalakane rivers, and were told by locals that the Thamalakane came " from a country full of rivers - so many no-one can tell their number; and of large trees " (clearly the Okavango Delta). This information was completely contrary to what geographers back in London has described. The expedition arrived at Lake Ngami proper on 1 August 1849. Later, the Royal Geographic Society awarded Livingstone 25 guineas for his discovery of Lake Ngami.
A year later, he and Oswell agreed to make another journey of discovery to Lake Ngami and beyond, by means of a boat that Oswell would bring up from the Cape ( to ford the crocodile-infested waters). Livingstone wrote that when Oswell did not arrive with the boat, he pressed on without him. However, Oswell later told his son a different story. W Edward Oswell wrote that Livingstone "…unable to resist the desire and opportunity of being the first to visit [chief] Sebituane, had started a month before". Livingstone also took all the credit for discovering the Zambesi river. It so happened that Oswell was with him on that occasion too- and again footed the bill. Livingstone's limelighting did not seem to bother Oswell however, he was in it for the hunting, not the glory.
But to come back to the disappearance of the Kalahari waters, Livingstone wrote that he had been very disappointed in the meagre size of lake Ngami- 120km in circumference. This was not what he had been led to expect from the Africans in the south. Clearly, the memory of Ngami being a great lake (and perhaps even the memory of the vastly bigger Kalahari lake) had been passed down through the generations of people who had migrated southward, who still believed it lay somewhere to the north. But by Livingstone's time it had shrunk to a much smaller lake, and today there is almost nothing left of it- it is more often a dry pan than not, and will one day resemble the Makgadikgadi, according to Karen Ross in Okavango, Jewel of the Kalahari. She writes that around the year 1900, there was a major shift in flow from the Thaoge river, which used to flow into Lake Ngami. This resulted in the drying up of Ngami and the western edge of the Delta. Livingstone recorded hunting sitatunga at Lake Xau, further south on the Boteti, which indicates how lush the vegetation there must have been at that time.
In 1987, Karen Ross wrote, "Xau now stands dry and desolate, peppered by the skeletons of animals which reached their age-old watering point, found it dry and were too weak to go further".
When I flew over the Delta, the floodwaters were about at their highest for the year and , for as far as the eye could see, the landscape shimmered with water. In some parts there were great, wide stretches, in others a multitude of smaller lakes, and in yet others a network of silver streams threading into voluminous watercourses that meandered slowly across the land. It is so utterly flat that, even from the air, the horizon looks like that of the sea. Yet, there was still plenty of land above water level, and this dry land exhibited the tell-tale paisley pattern of waterways, lakes, pans and islands, clearly indicating that in times of heavier floods, a great deal more of north-western Botswana is covered in water- up to 22000 square kilometers, according to Karen Ross. From the air we saw elephant, buffalo, lechwe, zebra and giraffe.
At Seronga, where the houseboats are moored, sitatunga and other smaller antelope cane be seen coming out to feed on the floodplain at dusk. Though we did not see elephant or buffalo near the water in the brief time I was there, it is possible to encounter them when cruising up and down the main river, or when fishing the many channels through the papyrus in the motorboat. An unusual sight that thrilled me was a pair of spotted-necked otters snaking through the surface of the water at surprising speed, and doing a graceful form of water ballet together as they searched for prey- these creatures really have fun at their jobs! We also saw a very big crocodile.
The operator offers three houseboats; I sailed on the Ngwesi, which is the smaller and more luxurious of the three. The other two are often used by large tourist parties who selfcater. The Ngwesi is 40x20ft, built on pontoons, powered by two 60-horsepower outboards, and accompanied by a motorboat for fishing and exploring the smaller channels. I have to say something about the chef. Given the remoteness of the location (supplies have to be brought in from Maun) and the extremely limited kitchen space, the gourmet meals this man produced were astounding. Without the facilities to keep food hot, he prepares and cooks each course while you are enjoying the precedent one. Yet there are no unwanted delays, and he produces exotic dishes that are superbly done, freshly served and piping hot. I could not have been more impressed. And then there's the fishing. There is marvellous tiger-fishing, of course, and bream that make superb eating, not to mention pike, catfish and other species. Owner Dries Krause, who was my pilot and host on the houseboat, said if ever I get a chance I must come back at the time of the catfish runs- one of the most amazing sights imaginable. Each year, just before the floods when the water is low, thousands of catfish migrate up the main channel of the Delta (where they will later spawn) and embark on a mass, concerted feeding frenzy. Going by her description in Okavango, Karen Ross was equally awed: "The 'Catfish Run' is a strange phenomenon, unique to the Delta…They hunt on the surface along the banks of papyrus, where they thrash their bodies against the plants and frighten the hiding fish out into the main river. The frenzied activity of this 'pack hunting' can be seen from far away as the water seems to boil. The activity attracts huge flocks of fish-eating birds such as fish eagles, cormorants, darters, herons, kingfishers and egrets".
My trip to Botswana was primarily to hunt, so the timing was not right for fishing. In a way I was not sorry, for the peak fishing time carries a price tag- mosquitos, dense clouds of gnats, and hotter weather, Fish were still biting when I was there, but you had to be something of an expert and know the spots to catch them. The Houseboats local manager, Simon Allen, is just such an expert- I was happy to just play photographer. Simon got into a very big tiger which did a splendid leap out the water, but then threw the hook on another jump. Later, just as the sun was setting, he cought one of the most beautiful fish I have ever seen, and apparently quite rare- an NEMBWE, and a particularly big specimen, too. Its deep olive-green colouring had me spellbound. Though they are excellent eating, Simon did the honourable thing and released it. It was a fitting end to a fantastic experience.