Bushmen of the Kalahari

After a day of travelling through the Kalahari desert, which has a lot more trees than I expected, yet no perennial water anywhere
We stopped for lunch at a lodge run by this lovely lady
She worked with the local bushmen, or San, to create a place where you could interact with, and learn from the bushmen. Rather than simply gawk at them.
Her guest quarters consisted of mock up bushmen houses

Gudrun and Marion inside a hut

A group of bushmen from a local village arrived and led us off into the bush for our crash course in desert survival

They were not simply dressed up for work, and they did not speak english

They spoke to us with that wonderful clicky language that is impossible to emulate, and we had a translator to help us understand

admittedly, they looked a little bit like something out of a museum

This woman and her baby were absolutely gorgeous

They are a tiny people, with a lighter skin that gave them the reputation as the yellow skins in historic times

I learned a lot of really cool stuff about the plants, which I proceeded to promptly forget, of course

These were hard to forget though. They told us they use these seeds to help the children learn the bushman language. All those clicks and pops are hard even for them to learn you see. So, they put this seed under the tongue of the child and tell them to say 'kong'. So, try it now. Boy was that a shock as the seed explodes. Definitely helps add emphasis to your 'k!ong' for sure.

This woman is 74 years old. Amazing, isn't it?

These two men were rather handsome, don't you agree?

Photogenic people, for sure

After our lessons in plant life, they stopped in the shade

The boys taught us how to make fire

The ladies taught us how to get water out of roots

This was an amazingly simple musical instrument. A feather on a string. By swinging it around, they could make some really fun rhythms and sounds

Ostrich egg water container

What an adorable baby girl

Okavango by air

After our makoro tour through the delta, I jumped on the chance to see it from the air. This is the plane we took, and yes, it is a pig.
Some rural homes as we flew out of Maun
On this flight we saw all the animals that we missed during our walking 'safari'
The only real pictures I got were of the elephants. They are big enough to see. Can you count them?
This guy was alone
The contrast between the dry islands and the green marshes was even more apparent from the air
We flew for almost an hour and it was amazing how extensive the water was. Even more so when we got back and realized how little of the delta we had actually covered!

The animal trails were fun to look at

Especially the hippo trails through the marshes

The hippo trails are important in this system because they break through the reeds and provide paths to allow water flow

See the salt on the islands?

It really does seem to go on forever

so very dry

beautiful channels

Less than 4% of the water in the Okavango river actually reaches the bottom of the delta in Maun.

To give you perspective, all of the green areas in these pictures are actually flooded reed beds

This is less than 4% of the water in the delta!

(well, the be precise, we are slightly north of Maun, so that is not an accurate statement, but work with me here)

See why a makoro becomes the best form of transportation?

It was fascinating to see this place, especially after having the perspective of spending 2 days in the thick of it on the groundIf you are bored, open up these pictures and figure out how many have elephants in them. It's kind of surprising.

Maun, from the air

Our pilot Hugo

Isn't it fun when your dreams can come true?

(and I'm not just talking about the fact that I managed to avoid loosing my lunch on this flight!)