Moving west

 August 10

We spent the morning on a last set of drives around Linyanti, with great views of hyenas, zebras and elephants. Then we flew to Jao in the Okavango Delta. Normally the delta would be heavily flooded at this point in the year, but the rains this year were unusually low and many areas are already dry. This meant that we had to drive from the airstrip to a spot where we could board a motor launch for the 20-minute ride through the reed beds to the island that hosts our lodge for the next three nights. The Okavango is beautiful, and watching the sunset over the reed beds, surrounded by water lilies, papyrus and water birds, was great. The lodge and our tent accommodations are a bit more lavish than at Linyanti.

However, the highlight for today was undoubtedly our adventure at 2am before we left Linyanti. As previously mentioned, at Linyanti the hippos can be quite noisy at night. On the night of the 8th we had heard and smelled them coming out of the water and up onto land to graze, passing right by our tent, but we weren’t able to see them. On the night of the 9th, a hippo snorted so loudly that Kevin awoke and went out onto our porch with a flashlight to look for it. We were not permitted, at any of the camps, to walk around alone after dark for safety reasons. Anyway, at 2am on August 10 we saw a large hippo exiting the water, munching grass as it went, and Kevin was able to photograph it.  Then at breakfast the whole group was able to see a hippo mostly out of the water in front of the main building. Finally, on our motor launch ride to the Jacana lodge, a hippo sprang to the surface within about 50 yards of our boat... wonderful if a bit terrifying. 

Pictured: zebra, baby elephant after a swim, moonlight hippo