Bush camp - Okavango Delta

As I write, I'm drying gently after falling out of a Mokoro a couple of times. We set up camp a few hours ago, and we've been killing time by trying to pole around the 'Mokoro' dugout canoos we arrived in. Predictably, it's harder than it looks. In mitigation, though, I only fell out of the Mokoro once we'd started trying to knock each other off balance, and two people attacked me at the same time. Still, me clinging to the bottom of my upturned mokoro, nine-foot pole in one hand, yelling, 'Er, what do I do now?' at least gave those on the bank something to laugh about.

I'm about twenty metres away from the camp, well out of sight, but I can hear the gentle murmur of the local polers and guides as they chat, intermingled with the more animated sound of the tour group as some of them play 'Yahtzee'. We pitched camp around lunchtie, when we arrived from Tatunga camp. We reached Tatunga yesterday lunch time, on the outskirts of Maun. Another sand pit, it was, but again different in character from everything we'd seen previously. A Kiwi guy, Graham, seemed to run the place, and we had a bit of good-natured rugby banter – apparently England play NZ on Saturday, but I have a nasty feeling I'll be in Chobe somewhere. So, those who so wished headed out in the afternoon for a scenic flight over the delta. We went up in six-man planes, and flew around three hundred feet from the ground. It was pretty cool to see the Delta, the melange of pools, tributaries, islands and trees. We saw elephants, giraffes, buffalo and a pool of hippos, although it was difficult to get photos – particularly with my new camera. Magda was in our plane, and was a tad nervous, so we didn't go too crazy. All the same, everyone was feeling slightly queesy when we landed.

So, something changed last night, and I'm not quite sure what it was. After dinner – hamburgers! - we sat around as usual, but everyone seemed friendlier, more at ease. Perhaps it was because we didn't get the chairs out, and everyone sat on the floor. I talked more to the odd Korean girls. I really feel the tour has 'knitted' now as a group, everyone has the measure of everyone else, and we've worked out everyone's 'piss take limit'.

We were leaving at 7am, and only taking a day pack each (ironic, seeing as we were going for two). We were loaded onto an open truck in the morning and driven two hours to the 'Mokoro Station', which is a rather grandiose term for a stretch of riverbank with twenty or so knackered canooes on it. It's fair to say we all got incredibly cold on the truck over, and we disembarked, shivering, to be met by our guides and polers. The food and tents went in 'luggage' mokoros, and the rest of us, and our stuff, went two to a mokoro. Progress was slow for us. Our poler 'poled' like an old woman, which actually exceeded our expectations seeing as she was a very old woman. Frankly, they made a cockup. Silveo (German tent-mate, or 'GTM') and I were arguably the heaviest two people on the tour, and our boat was so old and low in the water she had to stop every five minutes to bale out her end. The poler stands at the back of the boat, much like a gondolier. She talked the whole time, whether it was to herself, another poler, or to us, we couldn't tell. We couldn't understand a word, although she may possibly have been saying, 'Bloody fat Europeans! Isn't four hamburgers a bit excessive even for you?'. Anyway, we were about two inches above the water line at the middle, and the journey was a bit stressful. A hippo emerged about ten metres from the boat, but that was the only animal we saw. The water, though, was startlingly clear. It's some of the cleanest water in the world, I'm told, and they say you can drink it – although, of course, the different mineral content may upset you.

Three hours later, we've now pitched tents, had lunch, and as I mentioend, been playing with the mokoros. Snowboarding meant I found it relatively easy to stand in the boat, but the pole is a law unto itself. Two of the Canadian kids eventually managed to push me into the water, whereupon I leapt back in, said to one of them, 'Right, you're going i...' then turned to the bank and asked her mum, 'Is it okay if she goes in?', before turning, grimly, back to my task.

So yes, I'm just about dry now, and we're off on a bushwalk in a couple of hours. We are to wear muted, natural colours... so, of course, one of the Koreans is wearing Orange culottes, a red tie-dye shirt and an orange bandana. Cosmic.