“Unpick one piece and the whole thing falls apart”: navigating the winding waterways of the Okavango Delta during a tumultuous time for the majestic ecosystem

It seems, on some level, like an impossibility – a mirage. Hundreds of trickling streams in the semi-arid highlands of Angola join forces with two mighty rivers that flow through Namibia and into Botswana, then spill into a 4,630-square-mile fan-shaped wetland, before vanishing into the sands of the Kalahari Desert. Poof. Or maybe it’s more like a miracle. Annual floods propel the Okavango River along its 1,000-mile downhill course, pushing with it 2.5 trillion gallons of water that fuel a profusion of life through a huge network of palm islands, channels and lagoons. As the water engulfs the previous season’s parched landscape, virtually everything it touches is reborn. Hundreds of Indigenous communities along its banks depend on these life-giving waters. For a decade, the delta has been protected as a water source by Unesco. “The Okavango Delta and its basin are one of the last great wild river systems left on the planet,” says Dr Karen Ross, an ecologist who championed its World Heritage designation.

I’ve come to Botswana to see this magnificent tapestry up close – very close. I’d been here before during the June flood, when the delta appears from above like a terrarium of lustrous, mossy rocks. But it’s September’s dry season, when the plains wither to straw and thirsty animals gather by the river’s last liquid arteries. Only now can it be crossed on foot, which, combined with days journeying by motorboat and mokoro, a traditional canoe, will allow me the trans-Okavango expedition I’ve dreamed of.

However, the delta’s protected status does not make it invulnerable. For years, pressures have been mounting from extractive industries in Namibia and Angola, still recovering from a 27-year civil war, threatening the lakes and rivers that supply the Okavango with water. In Angola, deforestation for agriculture and timber has been rampant, and water-diversion projects and oil drilling may threaten the region’s biodiversity – especially by altering the patterns of elephants who germinate the palm islands from seeds in their gut and keep channels open as they roam. “It’s a bit like knitting,” says Dereck Joubert, the legendary National Geographic filmmaker and founder of Great Plains Conservation, which manages three lodges in the delta. “You unpick one piece and the whole thing falls apart.”

We have flown north from Maun, the gateway to the Okavango, to the delta’s panhandle, where seismic activity caused the river to suddenly fan out some 60,000 years ago. At Nxamaseri Island Lodge, a fishing camp on the main channel, I meet Mike Hill, a cargo-shorted, goateed South African who’s been in Botswana for three decades and guides expeditions through his outfit, Endeavour Safaris.

The river twists like a garden hose tossed onto grass. This emerald oasis provides critical habitat for Africa’s largest elephant population and endangered wild dogs, key numbers of lions and cheetahs, as well as rare aquatic-adapted antelopes and some 500 species of birds. Hippos are the real danger here (recently, one charged Hill’s vessel, ripping a hole in the side). They tend to congregate in the deeper waters of the reed-lined side of the river, so we ride on the side that’s backed by waving papyrus, floating root systems that the creatures cannot stand on.

Rounding a corner, we come upon water that churns as if at a rapid boil while making a loud pop-popping sound, like bongo drums. “A barbel run!” Hill exclaims. He’s on his feet and casting a line into the water. The noise is the smacking lips of countless barbel, a type of catfish, mid-feeding frenzy. The barbel run may stealthily power the ecosystem’s greatest nutrient cycle. As water drains out of the flood plains, it draws millions of minnows and other small fry into the main channel, where masses of lurking catfish run to the edges to feed, while tiger fish wait in deeper water for their turn to strike. Meanwhile, flocks of herons and egrets arrive to exploit the commotion, luring other predators to the banks. In the wake of it all, the fish chum nourishes everything, even the plants.

Some say the barbel runs used to be much bigger, though Hill shrugs off the suggestion that the past two drought years are the result of anything but natural cycles of high and low floods. Still, one can envision a time when the water won’t flow in sufficient volume to sustain the pattern, whether from climate change or human activity. In the Angolan highlands, for instance, there was a potential plan for a project that would have diverted water away from the Cubango, the precursor to the Okavango, with untold effects on the river’s ability to recharge the delta. For today, however, the barbel are running but not biting. Hill tucks away his rod.

We stop for the night on Itsatsa Island. Our bush camp is a hive of activity as Hill’s team pitches tents and a petite cook named Pie stirs a cauldron of her mother’s chicken curry over a campfire. Roughly half the delta’s workforce are employed in ecotourism – from camp managers and guides to pilots and boat mechanics. Over whiskies, Owner, who is Bayei, one of five Indigenous tribes in the delta, describes how his grandfather used to hunt buffalo by grabbing each one by the tail and sinking a sharp spear into its haunches. Fishing was a labour-intensive process of weaving baskets from reeds and laying them in the water to trap fish in the current. In this way, he took only what he needed. Owner says he wants to turn his grandfather’s island, just a few bends in the river from where we are now, into a camp. Right now Botswanans can petition the government for an inheritance claim on their ancestral lands. And, since 2020, a new policy has prioritised tourism licences for Botswana citizens, a means of building economic empowerment while connecting them to their natural inheritance.

From here, we branch east in the direction of Duba Plains, a private island concession spanning 81,500 acres, where two elephants are folding papyrus into their pink mouths. We’re joined by two men in a patrol skiff who interrogate Hill, then radio ahead to the lodge. Security is essential. In 2019, Botswana’s newly elected government overturned the country’s trophy hunting ban on the grounds that controlling the large elephant population would reduce incidents of crop-raiding and bring needed revenue to local communities. But then, and more recently, conservationists have cited aerial surveys that indicate a major uptick in poaching, particularly in the north. NGOs such as the Center for Biological Diversity and Humane Society International have also voiced concern about ongoing trophy hunting in Botswana in light of increasing elephant poaching and deaths.

Duba’s isolation has yielded a Noah’s Ark of wildlife. As we arrive, a pod of hippos raise their meaty heads out of the water to yawn and grunt, while two female elephants cautiously ford the river, nudging their babies along with their trunks like school crossing guards. We spend the afternoon in a Land Cruiser, stalking an elusive leopard, rolling by a male lion waking from his nap and watching nine wild dog puppies settle into their den. Life, fertility, abundance – even with the privations of the dry season.

After a night of dry feet, however, I’m eager to get back onto the river. The next morning, circling by helicopter over a horizon of lily-pad-like islands, we spot our boatmen, who will be leading us by mokoro to Wilderness Jao camp. There’s Tuff, who spouts facts with a schoolboy’s earnestness; Captain, the most senior poler and the quietest; and Cruise, our “hippo repeller”. In the delta, you don’t want to splash the water with a paddle, so long wooden poles are used to quietly propel the slender canoes through the shallows. Or to fend off a disgruntled hippo.

The channel narrows to just a few feet wide and inches deep. Water lilies light the way like torches, each white or lavender bloom anchored to an edible root. The air here is thrillingly pure – the hay-like aroma of the sedge mixes with decomposing plants and the mineral tang of water. I inhale deeply, scrubbing my lungs. The polers shove on through the gathering dusk when suddenly, from the right, comes the unmistakable snort of hippos. Their tiny eyes glint yellow in our flashlights. Cruise slaps the side of his mokoro with the pole to create a distraction, as Captain and Tuff glide us quickly by, towards the promise of a hot shower and a soft bed at Jao.

It’s hard to fathom how Jao’s fourth-generation Botswanan owners built the camp’s five soaring treetop suites, let alone the on-site museum and nest-like pool pavilion, on this remote island surrounded by nearly 150,000 acres of private concession. But, as at some of the delta’s top camps in exclusive-use concessions that push past £1,200 per night in high season, guests are also paying for the protection of thousands of acres of pristine nature. Botswana’s diamonds comprise 90 per cent of its global exports, but the delta is its crown jewel. It can afford a tourism model that is deliberately high-cost and low-volume. “It’s one reason why the Okavango is not like the Masai Mara,” says Ross.

A true trans-Okavango journey would entail travelling 250 miles by water from the panhandle to Maun at the delta’s farthest finger. Being short on time, we fly ahead to Kanana camp, where the dried floodplains make ideal terrain for our trek.

Before I left, Joubert had offered me advice for the hike, which is not without its risks: “Walking in the bush is a combination of looking down at your feet and looking up at the horizon.” Which is what I do, as we tread in silence along ancient elephant pathways. The trail is a palimpsest of the beasts’ giant, pancake-round tracks and the lobed pads of a hyena or tiptoes of a civet. We pass lion droppings of teeth and bones, and lechwe horns – artefacts of the less fortunate. Hill keeps a hand on his rifle and ear cocked – the sound of an oxpecker might signal a nearby impala, or worse. Elephants at a distance will leave you alone, he’d said, though one must steer clear of matriarchs with their young. And you don’t want to encounter a buffalo on foot – cranky and combative, they’re the bullies of the bush.

We settle into a rhythm for four miles and then more, sipping water sparingly. Ahead, two large bull elephants are browsing on a tree by a lagoon. Spotting us, one of them raises his head and flares his leathery ears. Hill signals to slowly backtrack along the water’s edge, where several hippos, feeling equally territorial, begin snorting and honking. One curious elephant strolls over to where Hill has placed me behind a fallen tree trunk. “Heyyy, my boy,” says Hill, in a calmly confident voice. The creature peers at us for a few long seconds. I remain frozen, my pulse hammering in my chest. The elephant raises his trunk and turns away. The rest of the walk is buoyed by the exhilaration of having gotten away with something rare, of touching a live wire connection with a five-ton wild beast. Almost nine miles after setting out, we enter AndBeyond’s Xaranna Camp – filthy, tired and radiant.

On our last day, we ride bicycles along elephant paths, hopping over berms and kicking up dust like the herd of buffalo that thunders past us in the next plain. After days of clear skies, a single gauzy cumulus cloud hangs in the air. “Pula” means rain in Setswana; it’s also the name of the currency. In a few weeks, December’s local rains will arrive, quenching parched plains and filling empty lagoons. It will be another six months before the massive rains on the Angolan plateau bring the annual flood.

If the time comes when this cycle doesn’t happen like clockwork, it will be not one but several forces pulling at the proverbial loose stitch. Climate change is making the delta hotter, not wetter, some say. Collaboration between the countries that border the Okavango will be critical to its protection. The wheels are in motion: Ross has been collaborating with Unesco, NGOs and the governments of Angola, Botswana and Namibia to extend the existing Okavango World Heritage site upstream and across boundaries into Angola. At an even more epic scale, state parties, government agencies, NGOs and private sector entities are working to enhance the Kavango-Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area (Kaza), which is larger than Germany and Austria combined, including the two river basins where Angola, Botswana, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe converge. There’s talk of seamless travel between all five countries with a single Kaza visa.

The Okavango Delta may be both a mirage and a miracle. It is also a metaphor. Just as the tiny minnow powers the barbel run in the river, which sustains the giants that stride through it, so do we all, in some way, enrich the big picture through playing our fleeting, responsible parts. I think back to what Joubert had advised about walking, which is equally true of conservation: looking down and looking up, small picture and big, now and in the future, one step at a time.

Doing the delta

Condé Nast Traveller-recommended specialist Cherri Briggs, founder of Explore Inc, orchestrated our multifaceted, six-night trans-Okavango trip with signature deftness, recruiting guide Mike Hill of Endeavour Safaris, who has led trips in Botswana for more than three decades. We were dropped by bush plane at Nxamaseri Island Lodge, a modest but congenial fishing camp in the Okavango’s panhandle. On Itsatsa island, Hill set up a lovely mobile camp and bush kitchen. The next few nights we slept in high comfort, first by floating into Duba Concession and Duba Plains Camp, the delta’s only Relais & Châteaux lodging; then Helicopter Horizons whisked us to a wild island inside Jao Concession, where we embarked on a six-mile mokoro ride to Wilderness Jao, steered by its guides. The camp’s design is a feat of engineering and artistry, with five suites and two villas made from wood, glass and recycled material.

We flew onwards to Ker & Downey’s Kanana Camp on the Xudum River, which is simpler but full of soul – with warm service, expert guiding and small canvas tents porous to the bird and animal life. We walked more than eight miles to AndBeyond’s Xaranna Okavango Delta Camp and were greeted by a splashing breeding herd of elephants in the lagoon outside the main guest area. Our last stop, following another helicopter drop, was Machaba Safaris’ Kiri Camp, a new property in crisp modern-African style. It sits on floodplains known for lion and buffalo encounters, which made it the ideal terrain for a bicycle safari led by Natural Selection’s Kyle MacIntyre, a young and spirited pioneer of the pastime. A trans-Okavango trip can be done nearly all year, but the river is best traversed by boat and mokoro in June and July, when the floods fill the delta and temperatures are cooler. Walking safaris are possible anytime from April or May to December, depending on rainfall.

Explore Inc offers safaris through Botswana from about £1,275 per person, per night; exploreinc.com