I don’t think I’ll ever forget this camping trip into the Botswana Okavango Delta. It’s one of those times in my life I look back on and wonder if it was actually real or maybe… just maybe… I imagined it because I’ve seen too many National Geographic specials.
Layne and I went to Maun, Botswana to visit good, good friends whom we used to minister with as missionaries from 2005 to 2007. Maun is situated just south of the Okavango Delta, the largest inland delta in the world. It is a haven of African wildlife and has been a favorite camping spot of ours for years. We decided to spend two nights camping on our way to visit our friends.
- Lioness
We arrived Tuesday night at the game park and set up our tent and got a fire ready. Just as we were getting ready to cook some meat over our fire we heard a lion roaring very nearby. We put the meal on hold, jumped in our truck, and drove about 300 yards into the bush to find, in all her glory, a beautiful lioness, roaring and huffing and making her presence known. We’ve been in this game park many times before and it’s actually pretty rare to see lions. The trip was starting off right!
Back at camp, dinner, smores (sort of… you can’t really buy graham crackers here so we improvised with some flat cookie like things), and bed.
- Hyena
The next day we got up early to try to see some wild animals as they enjoy the cooler temperature of the crisp morning air and came across a pack of hyenas. They were juveniles and were extremely curious about the large white beast that came right into their midst with such a roar (our truck). We stopped, turned off the truck and they came right up to our windows, sniffing our bumpers, and cautiously peering up at us through our open windows while we smiled and snapped pictures.
Awesome!
- Just Curious
Usually during midday animals are less active because of the heat so we rested at camp and headed back out in the mid afternoon to try one more time to see some wildlife before we left for Maun the next morning. We took a route that skirts the delta more and provides some wider views of flooded savannahs. There tends to be a bit more wildlife in those areas. We drove for maybe one and a half hours and were noticing that the two-track dirt road we were on was getting worse and worse. The floods of the delta came way up onto the road and we had to continue to drive through water that came up higher than our tires. Now… our truck is a very strong 4 wheel drive truck so it powered through and shrugged the water/dirt off each time. No problem. Well… as we continued and the water and mud got worse and worse I started feeling a bit uneasy about how deep and treacherous this muddy stuff was getting.
We finally arrived at a particularly deep looking part of flooded road and I decided that The Bison (our truck) had taken enough. I saw some tire tracks through the savannah grass to my right and decided to follow those to try to get around the un-parted red sea in front of me.
Nearly fatal decision.
Into the savannah I drove. Maybe 2 or 3 yards off the dry, firm dirt I just left, the tracks collapsed. Mud, water, fast-holding grass, and no movement.
Backup Jon… get yourself outa here.
Nothing… all four wheels were spinning like Russian ballerinas.
This is bad Jon… you’re one and a half hours away from the campsite, it will be dark soon and your truck is sitting on its axles in mud that sucks like Hoover-brand vacuum cleaners.
After some futile attempts to dig my way out of this stuff (the grass functioned like Kevlar over the mud keeping me from digging to my tires) I settled back into the car with my, at the time, very optimistic wife to wait for another safari vehicle to pass us and help tow us out of this stuff.
Nothing.
Dark.
No other safari trucks came that night.
At first we tried to keep the windows up to keep mosquitoes out. It got stifling and the windows fogged up so bad we couldn’t even see out in case a safari truck DID come along. We lathered up in mosquito repellent and opened the windows for a breath of air. It was a pretty rough night.
The next day came bright and clear and we woke before 7 hoping and expecting a safari truck to come along soon.
Hours passed.
Nothing.
At this point I realized that we needed to start thinking about water and food and how long we could actually hold out in our truck. Not long. We were roughly 18 miles from our campsite through lion/elephant/hippo/hyena territory. Not an easy walk.
“Scenic Flights over the Okavango Delta” periodically flew overhead and I started standing on the roof of our truck waving a white towel hoping for a sign that someone recognized our plight.
I spent another two hours trying to dig the mud and grass away from our tires.
No progress.
At noon I decided we needed to act. I tried to convince Layne to wait in the car for me and I would walk back to the campsite and find someone who could come back and help tow us out of the mud. She cried and told me that if I was going to be eaten by a lion she’d rather be eaten with me.
Off we went.
About one hour into our hike, 21 hours after getting stuck in the mud, about three miles away from the safety of our truck we caught a break. We saw two safari trucks in the distance.
They noticed us from about 30 feet away (they had been looking at animals in the other direction and we were walking through some nearly head-high grass) and greeted us with a sort of bewildered wonderment as we stumbled out of the tall grass and explained that we had been waiting for someone to come along for more than 20 hours.
They loaded us up on top of their safari trailer and drove us back to our truck to try to help get us out. We tried for about 1 hour and, even with their strong Land Rover we just couldn’t pull The Bison out of the steadfast mud gripping the axles and tires.
From the Trailer
Riding on top of their trailer back to our campsite may have been the worst part of this whole experience. Even now, writing about it 3 days later my rear and thighs can still feel the bruises of the wrought iron frame from the top of that trailer. One and a half hours on those bumpy, dirt roads back to camp squeezing all the blood out of my knuckles trying to keep from bouncing off and we arrived safely back at our tent.
Back at Camp
And this trip was supposed to be a comfortable camping trip.
The next morning we organized an industrial sized 4×4 truck to drive me back out to our, now two days stuck, Toyota Land Cruiser. A strong chain, a bone-rattling yank, and The Bison was pulled free.
I drove back to camp, Layne had already downed the tent, and piled all of our gear up. We threw it all in the back of the truck and got out of there.
You never really think those “Survivor” situations will happen to you. You never really think you’ll be standing on top of a stranded vehicle, miles from help, waving a white towel at passing airplanes, thinking about rationing your remaining water.
I guess we made it.