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Tag: okavango delta

  • African shoestrings – Zimbabwe Day One Hundred Harare

    Our last session of paddling was a mere 6 kilometres to our final destination, Nyamepi Camp in Mana Pools National Park. All in all we had paddled a total of 58 kilometres and by the time we had finished we all felt strong and confident enough to have gone on for another three days. When we were asked later on what had been the best thing we had seen and done whilst travelling this always comes to mind. It had been one of the greatest experiences of our lives!

    We were back in Harare at around 10 pm and settled into our very ordinary (especially at the price of US$65 per person) room in the annex of the Bronte Hotel. This was meant to be our treat but the room was tired and old and really was no more comfortable than an average priced motel found in anywhere in the western world. What was nice about the Bronte was the hotel lobby and gardens and we made sure that we fully enjoyed having our breakfast, a drink in the afternoon and a coffee after dinner in the tropical colonial style gardens. Dinner was actually the best event of the day (we had spent a good few hours at the Tanzania embassy obtaining our visas). The Italian Restaurant Fat Mama’s in the Russell Hotel was obviously the local white and ex-pats hangout and I could see why. Great food, great atmosphere and great prices!

     

    The next few days were taken up with transport and what I call the bus rides from hell! What follows next is reality but not necessarily typical of public transport in this part of the world. Of all the people we met during our travels we were the only ones who seemed to cop the experiences that I’m about to describe. It just seemed to happen to us!

    Bus ride from hell number one started with a pick up at our hotel, early the next morning, by the bus company Ute to take us the Mbare bus station across town. On his way (in fact out of his way) the driver went via Possum lodge and picked up two other unsuspecting white passengers.

    The bus station was chaotic and frightening. People came from everywhere grabbing at our bags and us. Someone grabbed one of our bags and with me still hanging onto it, led us onto the bus and then asked for our passports. What then confused us was another guy sitting further down the bus also asking for our passports and at the same time shouting “Watch your bags, watch your passports, watch everything!”

    This guy was obviously in charge and we held onto the passports until we reached him. The other guy mysteriously disappeared and there was no doubt in my mind that had we relinquished our passports to him that would have been the last we would have seen of them.

    Once we found our seats we could see the chaos and crap outside the bus. I say crap because the diesel fumes were noxious and those working in the area had paper filters fitted over their mouths and noses.

    The seats we had were one row from the back and directly behind the other white couple who seemed to have handled the situation a with lot more cool than we had. Our bags were on the seat behind and we had three seats all to ourselves. This wasn’t going to be so bad we thought as eventually the bus got going. But that was as good as it got! Fifteen minutes later it stopped at the bus depot to pick up double the amount of passengers and probably triple the amount of luggage. There is a rule in Africa; don’t allow your bags to sit on the roof of any vehicle ’cause there’s a big chance you won’t see them again. Even the locals hang onto their bags. This time despite our protests we knew we had no choice; there was hardly enough room for all the passengers let alone the bags.

    I got out of the bus and stood and watched as they loaded the bags on to roof. The only other white guy, Andy stood next to me. Andy was a Zimbabwean and his girl friend Jenny was from South Africa.

    “So what happens now” I asked

    “I dunno” he said

    “You’re the local”

    “Yeah but I’ve never traveled on one of these before”

    The bus driver, conductor and other helpers finished covering the bags with a huge tarp and tying it all down and we were beckoned back onto the bus.

    Oh well I thought not much we can do now as we got back onto the bus.

    We had now lost our spare seat to a small quiet man who spent most of the time dozing. His head flopped about as if connected to his body by a rubber neck and often ended up on my shoulder. We westerners are funny like that we cringe at someone encroaching on our space. I had to keep shrugging him off and I swear that if I had some rope I would have tied his head to the back of the seat.

    The bus actually set off at 8.15 surprisingly only one and half hours late. It didn’t take long for part of the tarp to come away and start flapping against the side of the bus and on our first refreshment stop it was retied well enough to last around fifteen minutes before it started flapping again.

    After that stop we acquired a rather sinister looking uniformed man who checked a few passports and then disappeared and then reappeared half an hour later to collect a Z$70 ‘border fee’ from everyone. It was the last of our Z$ and I had the feeling that we were being ‘had’ especially when no receipt was forthcoming even when asked for. This fee was apparently to ease the pain going through the Mozambique border post.

    At the Nyamapanda border our passports were collected by this bloke and he made a sort of half hearted inspection of our bags before giving our passports and presumably money to the Mozambique officials. We had to wait around for about an hour whilst all this ‘officialdom’ was dealt with.
    This was the pits.
    The Zimbabwe side was not too bad but the Mozambique post was an old dilapidated shack with a couple of holes in the ground masquerading as public toilets a few metres away. They stunk! The stench was almost visible from 10 metres away.

    The whole area was full of persistent moneychangers, curio sellers, drink sellers and sellers of anything else they could rip you off with. It was the first of only two times that we were glad to get back onto the bus.

    Footnote:

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    Dug out canoes at the Okavango Delta In Botswana
    Happier times -Dug out canoes at the Okavango Delta In Botswana

     

     

  • African shoestrings – Zambia Day Eighty Six Victoria Falls

    Apart from the shopping and of course the many energetic activities associated with the falls itself (like bungy jumping, white water rafting, absailing etc) there is one that takes you back to a long gone era of British colonialism; afternoon tea on the terrace of the Victoria Falls hotel. This colonial style building had for years been the centre for Europeans up until independence. It was here that local white farmers, townsfolk and well off visitors would gather for spot of ‘tiffin’. Certainly it has lost none of its atmosphere even if it has its colonial clientele. Nowadays well off tourists (mostly Americans) stay in its well-appointed and stylish rooms and budget tourists like us frequent it for afternoon or morning tea and if really feeling extravagant, dinner. Of course it does have prime position overlooking the Zambezi gorge just downstream from the falls.

    I couldn’t help imagining, as we ate our cucumber and smoked salmon triangular bite sized sandwiches, men and women in hats, striped jackets and full length full dresses playing croquet or just lazing around on the expansive and immaculate back lawn. Black waiters dressed in black trousers and white dinner jackets, hovered at our beck and call and delivered the three tier silver tray full of sandwiches, scones, finger cakes and on the side the obligatory tea. It was wonderful even though I don’t like cucumber or tea and cheap at an all you can eat price of US$4 each.

    Across the other side of the hotel is the train station, another relic of the Edwardian past. We had to catch a train here to Bulawayo the next day and we thought it a good idea to book. We had wanted to book a first class coupe, which sleeps just two but had to settle for a second class that sleeps three. Not a big issue we thought at the time. The train left at 5 pm the next day so we had 24 hours left in Vic. Falls.

    Despite the number of tourists that increase as the years go by there is still plenty of wildlife in and around Vic Falls. On our last visit we twice come across wild elephants whilst walking and cycling just outside of town and had also seen a family crossing the Zambezi upstream from the falls. This time round we saw plenty of elephants on a night time game drive and then the following morning we actually rode on some as well!

    Elephant riding is an experience not to missed. The Elephant camp is in a location too remote to find ourselves, so we were picked up and taken there early in the morning and given tea (again) and biscuits just in case we couldn’t survive a couple of hours without sustenance.
    Richard our tour leader introduced us to the elephants as their riders put them through a series of exercises. Fortunately we didn’t need to follow suit! Next it was time to jump on and that’s easy. A platform has been erected just for this purpose.
    Settling in behind the rider (they very wisely team novices like us with riders who really know what they’re doing) I thought how well cushioned the saddles are. Now I always thought that elephants were big heavy brutes that destroy everything in their path as they move around.
    Well that myth was destroyed within the first five minutes of riding! Incredibly they just glide through the bush effortlessly and quietly leaving no trace behind them. Apparently it’s the muscles in their feet that move around to cope with the weight displacement. So it’s just a steady swaying movement as we followed Richard who was on foot and carrying a rifle with both hands behind his neck. The rifle is for our protection just in case a lion or leopard gets too near. Even though he’s never had to use it yet he still believes it’s better to be on the safe side and that sounded like a pretty good practice to me.

    Richard was one of those “boy’s own” characters that seem so commonplace in the ex British colonial Africa. A tall, solidly built, good looking young man he spoke with that sort of cultured Zimbabwean English accent that’s also very close to the accent spoken by South Africans of British ancestry. He would have been born and brought up during Zimbabwe’s war of independence and most likely, as with so many others of his generation who stayed and toughed it out, he was taught how to fire a gun before he could read.

    My elephant was called Manna and my rider was Sopi. Sopi was quite chatty and told me that they had eight elephants in all. They use them in rotation and were purchased for Z$500 from a nearby park that were about cull these beautiful beasts. Most of them are males; it seems that their temperament is more suited to this type of work than females. Elephants live for around 60 – 70 years and during this time they will wear out four sets of teeth. After having seen them eat at the end of the ride I’m not surprised, they chew as if their lives depend on it which in fact I suppose is true. It’s partially because of their feeding habits that the ride is only one and a half hour long. Apparently they get rather anxious and twitchy when they get hungry so it’s wise to keep it short and let us off before hunger gets the better of them.

    The ride actually finished at a secluded spot where we also got fed but not until we helped the riders feed them. Both Sue and I bravely put our hands into our respective elephants mouths with some special feed which was their treat for being good little steeds (the feed not our hands). It actually wasn’t the hand I feared for the most, it was suffocation; their breath is terrible! But not quite bad enough to put me off my bacon and eggs!

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    Dug out canoes at the Okavango delta in Botswana
    Dug out canoes at the Okavango delta in Botswana

     

  • African shoestrings – Zambia Day Eighty Three Livingstone

    We were now into the final day of the Audi tour and the final trip was from Kasane to Livingstone. Somehow five of us, plus Chris and our bags, managed to squeeze into an old beaten up left hand drive Nissan Sunny and drive to Kazungula where we crossed the Zambezi by ferry into Zambia. After the usual slow border control process we were met fortunately by one of Chris’s offsiders in a minibus that was able to take our bags. We mere humans continued on in the luxury Nissan along 60 kilometres of what we presumed was once upon a time a flat bitumen road surface that had now been reduced to an ‘African’ track of potholes punctuated by the odd short stretch of almost smooth bitumen.

    Our final destination was the quaintly and considering Chris was one of the owners, appropriately named Fawlty Towers backpackers in Livingstone. Actually it’s one of the better backpackers we had seen so far. It was like a mini resort without the poolside cocktail bar. A big private courtyard with a swimming pool was at the centre with most of the accommodation and functional rooms fronting it. A little of oasis of western culture in the heart of a very African town, somehow I felt that it had been designed to keep the residents away from the inquisitive locals.

    Actually Livingstone itself was quite a nice place. Its located 11 kilometres from Victoria falls itself as distinct from the Victoria Falls the town. Four years previous we had stayed a few days at Victoria Falls and had hired a couple of bikes so that we could ride across the border and see the Zambian side of the falls and visit Livingstone. We did the former but we were put off the idea of the latter by the bike hire guys. “You must make sure your wife is always in front of you and close to you otherwise those Zambians will kidnap her. Livingstone is a bad place”. Needless to say four years on, it was with some trepidation that we actually walked into the main part of town.

    We needn’t have worried! Whilst the Lonely Planet does actually mention incidents of the occasional walker being mugged between the falls and the town, there was certainly no indication of a wild town that was eyeing up every white female with a view of selling her at the local slave market. Mind you the Lonely Planet did mention the fact that due to the muggings bike hire had become popular which changed little as there were now reports of the odd cyclists being mugged. So even though the Zimbabweans probably laid it on thick there is apparently some truth to their warnings.

    Livingstone was until the 1970’s the centre for the falls but the Zimbabwean town of Victoria Falls started to become much more popular as Zambia itself struggled with its own political and economic problems. Nowadays its making a comeback for those wishing to escape the frenzied tourist activity and more recently the unsettling political and economic problems of its Zimbabwe neighbour.

    Mind you from a tourism prospective there isn’t a great deal to see in Livingstone itself so we contented ourselves with having lunch and a few beers with John & Alison at the rather colonial Pig’s head pub. We had a developed a sort of travelers friendship with John and Alison, probably because they were a couple like us and also because they too were heading in the same direction. John, as an Englishmen, was certainly pretty patriotic and for me that was honourable but more importantly it offered a good opportunity to bait him about his country’s pathetic imitation of a cricket team.

    The food at the Pigs head was nothing special but was almost five star in comparison to the Funky Monkey restaurant where our group had our farewell dinner that night. It was awful!

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    Lilies at on the Okavango Delta In Botswana
    Lilies at on the Okavango Delta In Botswana

     

  • African shoestrings – Botswana Day Eighty One Chobe

    Eventually our time was up and we had to leave this pleasant existence. We were canoed back to the village of Jao in the early hours. This time we had the opportunity to wander around this traditional village, although I think the main aim was to get us to buy hand made baskets, not wander off on a photographic shoot that yours truly did. Actually the small quantity of baskets that were for sale had enormous price tags, so business was pretty poor for them that day. What was more interesting (baskets are way down my shopping list) was the way these people lived. Jao consisted of a collection of mostly reed or bamboo huts with thatched roofs but some of them were mud and others were constructed using tin cans as bricks held together by mud or dung. Most of these homes had an enclosed yard that we sneaked a look at, used for cooking and storing chickens and donkeys. One woman took a sharp looking garden hoe to her donkey that was getting to close to comfort to her toddler. This poor animal had scars from previous encounters and probably lived a life of misery, if a donkey can have such a thing.

    The children were fascinated by these white camera-carrying tourists and posed quite happily in fact almost insistently for our cameras. Some of them had runny noses and sticky eyes which made us think their health was still a long way from being as good as children of the west.

    We got back to Ngepi camp, after having to cram into the one motor boat with all our bags, camping gear and supplies when only one boat turned up, in the late afternoon.

    That night we had a ‘treat’; the dancers of the Mbuknshu people put on a show of traditional dancing. It was boring and repetitive and was far less entertaining than watching the antics of an overlander group who had arrived at the same time as us. It’s sort of like watching Neighbours (in fact most of them were Aussies and Kiwis). There were usual ructions created by clicks, one night stands and show offs. One guy was so ‘cool’ that he sat on the edge of the table, dressed immaculately to look so casual, drinking neat bourbon straight from the bottle. Yuk!

    We had our own ruction later that night as somehow I managed to spill kero from the lantern all over the floor of the tent. Within seconds we were out of that tent with our bags and then spent the next hour erecting another in the dark. To say that Sue was not amused is probably a bit of an understatement although she has dined out on it a few billion tedious times since!

    The next day we were headed through the infamous Caprivi Strip. Infamous because over the years the five tribes that make up the inhabitants, the Caprivians, of this narrow 500 kilometre long extension of Namibia, have from time to time created unrest in their demands for autonomy. This particular time there a lull in the friction and minus Klaus, Ingrid and Anna we drove the seven hour length of the strip without any incident apart from the bone jarring badly maintained roads.

    Our destination was Kasane in Northeastern Botswana. You might well be asking why didn’t we go straight from the delta to Kasane instead of back via Namibia. The easiest answer is I don’t know and don’t care. These guys obviously knew what they were doing and I for one was quite happy to follow their plan. However a quick look at a map of Botswana and Namibia explains all. Whist it’s a relatively short distance as the crow flies from the delta to Kasane it’s a bloody long way by road. A circumnavigation of central Botswana is required to get there by road.

    Kasane actually sits close to the borders of four different countries. Botswana, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe and more importantly is the gateway to Chobe National Park, one of the gems of African Game parks. This was going to be one of the highlights of our time in Africa. We had read a fair bit about Chobe and knew that it has probably the most varied wildlife in Africa on a setting that is as varied and scenic as it inaccessible. It was the inaccessible bit that convinced us to see it with a tour operator. Heavy-duty admission fee (US25.00 per person per day), heavy duty 4WD hire meant heavy-duty money.

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    Sunset on the Chove River in Chobe National Park, Botswana
    Sunset on the Chove River in Chobe National Park, Botswana

     

  • African shoestrings – Botswana Day Seventy-Eight to Eighty Okavango

    The Delta itself reminded me of a vast flooded field with pockets of dirt that support large trees and palms. It actually consists of a maze of meandering channels, with dense masses of papyrus and other aquatic plants; many shallow, water-filled basins; and numerous islands, or elevated wooded areas that remain dry during flooding. The delta normally covers about 16,000 square kilometres, but this year the rains had been good and it was at its highest level for many years, which translated into covering a larger area than average.

    PT our Polar seemed to be the number one man when the number one man, who was a lot older than the other polars, didn’t go out, which was often. Our first experience of riding in the Mokoro was on the way to the next camp on a nameless island near Qokoqere, deep in the heart of the delta.

    In no time at all we reached the new camp. This time there are no facilities whatsoever, just a hole in the ground for a toilet and the water of the delta for washing. Once we had set up camp again we went back out in the Mokoro and stopped on an adjoining island. PT took us all for a walk and told us of how his people use the trees and plants, what animals and birds are around and the danger of crocs and hippos. Because the water was so high most of the animals had moved away to higher ground so all we saw apart from the odd croc were some Letchwe, a small water antelope that kept their distance.

    After lunch we went for a swim, well some of us brave enough did. It’s a bit scary knowing that we were in the same territory as a croc or hippo but we were assured that this particular spot was croc and hippo free. I did notice however that a couple of the polars were continually scouring the water for any gatecrashers.

    For the next three days we had a set pattern, up early and out on the Mokoro, back for lunch, back out again after a siesta and the heat of the day to return at sunset. Travelling by Mokoro is a restful and mostly relaxing way to travel (apart from the odd pampas grass brushing our face and the zillions of insects). It just glides through the calm, crystal clear water without any noise, just a gentle splash of the pole as it too moves through the water pushing us on past the papyrus and water lilies that are dotted almost everywhere. Apart from the pole the only other noise is that of the polars chatting and laughing amongst themselves and the odd motor boat disturbing the serenity. We seemed to drift here and there in this water labyrinth, sometimes getting out for a walk or a swim or (as if we needed it) a rest.

    Occasionally these guys would get a bee in their bonnet about finding a particular bird or animal that we had been discussing the night before. We spent three hours one morning looking for Pel’s fishing owl and finally found one hiding in a densely leafed tree on a remote island. Then we spent the same afternoon searching for a Sititunga another antelope that was so rare and extremely shy that we never actually found one!

    Evenings were spent chatting and talking whilst waving away the persistent mosquitoes. These mosquitoes were not, we were assured, the malaria carrying variety, not that it mattered because the insect repellant that we used was capable of killing small animals at twenty paces.

    Andre and Annie did their very best to make us all comfortable and served us up basic but excellent fare.

    As I said before we were, apart from Klaus and Hilda, the oldest of the group by some years. The other four were all Uni. students taking time out and we became all reasonably friendly except for the ‘oldies’ who seemed to keep themselves aloof. Mind you they were only with us on the delta so I guess it probably wasn’t essential that they get to know us. It might have been though the fact that none of us had khaki safari suits and they felt the odd ones out.

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    Polers on the makoros (canoe) in the Okavango delta, Botswana
    Polers on the makoros (canoe) in the Okavango delta, Botswana

     

  • African shoestrings – Botswana Day Seventy-Seven Okavango

    Whether it’s because of the high fees they charge tourists or their natural resources of diamonds, copper and nickel, all of which are mined extensively, Botswana is a relatively wealthy country. It has one of the fast growing economies in the world and its GDP per capita is the highest on the African continent outside of South Africa. None of this was apparent in Shakawe where we stopped to buy ice and other supplies. Dusty run down buildings and shacks were everywhere as were dusty rundown vehicles. Even the townsfolk looked a bit dusty and rundown and seemed to just wander or sit around fairly aimlessly.

    At Supopa we were meant to have two motor boats waiting for us but this is Africa and things don’t often run to plan, so we had to wait an hour or so before being guided onto one of them and our baggage loaded onto the other. About an hour into the three and a half hour journey our boat began to cough and splutter a few times and the second boat, now some distance away, returned to take some of the human baggage and hence lighten its load. We eventually made it to our destination, an island in the delta near the village of Jao, which we could just see from the distance.

    This campsite was in the process of being constructed by a few locals and another bloke from Audi, Brendan and was supposedly near completion but you could have fooled me. But it was just about habitable.

    By now there was ten in our group; Louise (a Pom), who had traveled with us from Windhoek, John and Ann (more Poms), Elizabeth (a yank), Klaus and Ingrid (Germans) and our guides Andre and his more experienced sister Anna. So the night was spent getting to know each other around the campfire. Of course with a South African there as well (Brendan) the topic of conversation never strayed far from Rugby Union and Cricket although we did have a friendly argument about the Southern Cross.

    To Australians and New Zealanders the Southern Cross is an important part of our psyche, it’s on our both our flags, is used extensively in official and commercial advertising and most of us know roughly where it is. But it’s by no means unique to Australia and New Zealand. It can be seen almost anywhere in the Southern Hemisphere all the year round and it’s pretty distinctive. Now I can understand people from the Northern hemisphere not knowing anything about it they can only see at certain times of the year low in the sky plus of course places like England are lucky to see any of the night sky. But Brendan, a budding tour guide, was under the woeful misapprehension that it couldn’t be seen outside of Australia. After much discussion I eventually fired up and marched him, followed by some of the others, away from the fire and pointed into the sky at the five stars that make up Southern Cross to put to bed that woeful misapprehension.

    The next morning our polars turned up one Mokoro short! We needed six not the five that were brought; two people to each boat and one for the luggage and supplies. After much hand waving and gesturing eventually one of the polars went back to Jao and found an extra Mokoro and Polar.
    Mokoros (otherwise known as dugout canoes) are carved from Ebony or the Sausage Tree and take around three months to make by hand. The forked pole the polars use are made from the Silver Terminilia tree and it’s this pole that in the hands of these guys enables the Mokoro to move quietly and effortlessly. Like the gondolieriers of Venice, these guys make it look so easy. Unlike the gondoliers of Venice the Mokoro is economic in design and whole lot less comfortable. A hard wooden plank was to be home for our rear ends for the next few days but we managed to get used to it.

    Only one of them had back rests and that was literally jumped into by Klaus and Hilda. They were to be fair, a lot older than even us, let alone the rest who once again were all young enough to make us feel parental again (grand parental in Klaus and Hilda’s case).

    You know you can pick people a mile off. I had Klaus picked as a bit of a know it all from the time we first met as he stood in his khaki safari suit puffing on his pipe on the bow of the motor boat, trying his best to look like Mr. ice-cool as the boat jumped up and down and spluttered from time to time. I can never quite understand why some tourists believe that buying and wearing the latest safari suits will enrich their time in Africa. I know all the blurb suggests you wear green or light brown clothing so that you don’t stand out when on a safari but 90% of that time is spent in a minibus or 4WD which stand out a lot more than we will, regardless of what we wear. In Uganda four years before, we came across two American ladies impeccably dressed in all ‘the gear’ plus polo hats. You can imagine what colour their clothes were after the jungle trek to find mountain gorillas. In fact I’ll swear blind that I heard some of the Gorillas laughing at them.

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    Young Poler on a makoro (canoe) in the Okavango delta, Botswana
    Young Poler on a makoro (canoe) in the Okavango delta, Botswana

     

  • African shoestrings – Lesotho Day Fourteen

    The next morning we awoke just before daylight after an eventful night.
    Thunderstorms had followed us there and dumped rain on us just as we arrived the day before. They had cleared for a while but came back overnight and the heavy rain found its way through the opening in the hut that passed for a window.
    Not only that but the front door seemed content to allow itself to be pushed around by the wind creaking or banging loud enough to wake us.
    This was also the first night that we had slept in our new super duper -2°C sleeping bags. Comfy they were, cold they weren’t. We both boiled and spent the night tossing the top off as we fried and then back on again as we froze a few moments later.

    So we awoke the next morning grouchy. I was ready to give that damn pony of mine a piece of my mind, if even it so much looked like going off the track. But events had already got ahead of me. Black Label had been demoted! David now rode him and I rode David’s steed Black Cat.

    Now Black Cat was my sort of horse, this bloke was strong, sure footed, docile and to my surprise obedient. He obeyed my every command, something I had never experienced in an animal, or come to think of it in a human, before.

    The journey back was, despite aching limbs, muscles and rear end, (I never realised how many muscles are used in riding), very pleasant.
    Gentle descends and ascends into valleys of green, cradled by perfectly formed grass covered hills and mountains of varying shapes and sizes.
    Occasionally we would see the odd cluster of thatched roofs in the distance, perched on a small plateau or down in a valley. Despite being kept at arm’s length from the villages we still saw plenty of traffic on the track.
    Unlike the hordes of pedestrians in South Africa these people seemed to have a destination or purpose for their travel. Men and boys on ponies were herding livestock; women on foot were carrying firewood or crops.

    Young Boy looks at the camera in a small village in Botswana
    Young Boy looks at the camera in a small village in Botswana

  • The A-Z of places: Botswana

    Canoeing on the Okavango Delta

    Young Poler on a makoro (canoe) in the Okavango delta, Botswana
    Young Poler on a makoro (canoe) in the Okavango delta, Botswana

    Makoros

    Dug out canoes or makoros at the Okavango delta in Botswana
    Dug out canoes or makoros at the Okavango delta in Botswana

    Peek-a-boo

    Young boy peeking in a hut in a small village in Botswana
    Young boy peeking in a hut in a small village in Botswana

    Lion

    Lion in chobe NP, Botswana
    Lion in chobe NP, Botswana

  • Photo tip no 4

    Camera shake! The enemy of a clear photo. Most people take pictures and look at them on the camera’s rear screen and think they are OK or even great. Its not until they download them and see them on their computer, laptop, tablet etc.  do they realise they are a bit ‘fuzzy’ (soft is the technical term). That’s usually caused by camera shake. In other words the picture taker moved whilst taking the shot. My tip – if you have DSLR or micro 4/3 rds with a view finder, USE IT! Its much easier to hold the camera steady with the camera against your face than it is holding it at arm’s length. If you don’t have a view finder i.e. the majority of compacts and smartphones, then try to bring the arms back and tuck them into your sides. Obviously the other alternative is to use a tripod and I’ll talk about this on a future post. For now – Hold that camera still!!

    Lillie Pad flower in the Okavango Delta Botswana ©2013 Nick Katin
    Lillie Pad flower in the Okavango Delta Botswana ©2013 Nick Katin

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