Bush Planes

Getting to the Okavango Delta was quite an experience. Ricardo and I woke up at 4am to catch the first flight of the day from Maputo to Johannesburg, then after a short layover boarded an Air Botswana jet from Johannesburg to Maun, a small dusty city known as the gate to the Delta. Our flight of about 50 passengers was all foreigners, the vast majority American. We arrived in Maun shortly after lunch and were greeted by the people from Wilderness Safaris, the tour operator that had organized our trip. They gave Rico and I bottles of cold water and led us onto the runway to catch a charter flight to Seba Camp where we would begin our safari. This lovely little 6-seater was the plane we took.

The first 15 minutes of the flight I was sooooooo excited. I spent the entire time with my forehead pressed against the window looking at the rivers and swamps and islands below, a seemingly impossible landscape for a place that is predominately desert. My hope, of course, was to see some animals from the air...

...which we didn't, but the scenery was still just gorgeous, not to mention the giddiness from being "on safari" and flying in a private plane over the bush in the middle of nowhere.

The Okavango Delta is the world's largest inland delta and is known as the "river which never finds the sea." Waters from the highlands of neighboring Angola enter northwestern Botswana through the Okavango River, the principal channel of the Delta that at one time was connected to a large lake, flowing into the upper Zambezi waterways, the Limpopo River and ultimately the Indian Ocean. But tectonic movement raised up part of the land and changed the flow of the Okavango River, which now disappears into a 6,000 square mile maze of lagoons, lakes and islands in the Kalahari sands.

This photo was taken approximately 13 minutes into our charter flight. I was happy and excited and busy looking down at the bush to try and spot animals. Around minute 15 of the flight, my expression changed as the first waves of nausea hit. I never knew I got motion sickness on planes, but -wow- did I find out in Botswana. All the color drained out of my face, I felt my Air Botswana lunch in my throat, and I had to stare at the horizon and practice deep meditative breathing to keep from reaching for the air sick bag. I can't emphasize enough how grateful I was to touch down on a bumpy gravel runway soon thereafter - I didn't even mind the dust and the bumps!