Annika recently returned from a NBa21 Southern Circle tour. She had this to share...  September in Botswana is usually very dry. The vegetation is brown and yellow and everyone, including wildlife, is waiting for summer and the first rains. The fact that most of the country is very dry during that time, makes the Okavango Delta an even more special place. The amount of water in the delta depends on the rains in Angola, where the river originates. 

Due to the very low gradient, it takes months for the water to reach Botswana which leads to the fact that the delta has still a lot of water when all other parts of the country are at their driest stage. This makes the Okavango Delta the place to be for wildlife!On our recent tour, we already encountered a huge amount of wildlife on our way into the delta, by our 4x4 vehicles and Mokoro. These included giraffe, zebra, impala, baboon, and a large amount of elephants. Elephants obviously consume large amounts of water and therefore you can expect to see many of them in the Okavango Delta during the dry season. So we expected to see them, but what we did not expect was to see them resting in our camp! When we got to the spot on our island where we were supposed to pitch up our tents, we found a breeding herd of about twenty elephants resting in the shade. Due to it being midday, they were not really happy with us trying to get out of our mokoros at that spot.

We watched them a little bit and decided to let all the mommies and babies rest in our camp through the heat of the day, and we went a bit further into the Delta, to find a different camping spot. These elephants thanked us later that afternoon by passing across the water close to our new camp, giving us superb photo opportunities.