Quick recap: My adventure to Botswana started at a bright and early 3:45am. In typical African style, our transport to the airport was late...so much so that we almost missed our flight! (This was further compounded because some idiot forgot his passport and we had to turn the bus around.) When we arrived at the airport, the airlines had a whole counter ready for us. Luckily, we made it one time. After arriving in Joberg, we boarded our huge overland truck and trekked across the border to Botswana and we camped for the first night in the middle of nowhere. The second day, after 6 hours in the truck, we finally arrived in Maun.
We arrived in Maun in the early afternoon. We had lunch, set up our campsite, and did the daily run to the bar for ice cold bottled water and diet cokes. (This ritual became a frenzied rush every time we arrived at a new campsite.)
After lunch, we went on a scenic flight over the Okavango Delta. The Okavango is a labyrinth of lagoons, lakes and hidden channels covering an area of over 17,000 square km and is the largest inland delta in the world. Trapped in the parched Kalahari sands, the Delta is created by the rainfall it receives from Angola.
The Maun airport was officially the smallest airport I have ever been in (one of my many African firsts). My 4 friends and I eagerly awaited for our pilot in the "terminal" which was about the size of my living room. When Paul came in and introduced himself to us, we were overcome with giddy girl excitement. At first glace, we were smitten with his good looks, overall charm, and disarming (read: sexy) accent. But those feelings slowly dissipated when we realized that Paul could have easily been 15 years old, and definitely weighed less than us. And no one wants a pre-pubescent boy zipping them around in mini planes. That's just reckless and terrifying. So before he strapped us all in and sealed the door to the plane--we just had to ask: "Paul, um, I'm sure you get this a lot, but how old are you?" Well, what do you know, Paul just so happened to be 21, and had been flying for 5 whole years. Although our feelings of fright did not dissolve with this information (hello, the plane had 6 seats and looked like a slightly larger version of what little toddlers play with) it did justify all of the wildly inappropriate comments we were muttering behind his back. Check out Paul and his beauty of a plane:
And here's all of us smashed into the back of the plane, smiling to hide our nervousness about flying with some hooligan:
Paul somehow managed to take off, fly for 45 minutes (without turbulence I might add) and land us safely back on ground. I'm still skeptical that he was a licensed pilot. He just looked so little. All in all, it was really awesome to see the Delta from the air and know that in less than 24 hours I would be camping on its banks, swimming in its channels, and traveling throughout it in mekoros!
