The next morning we quickly broke up our camp and went for a short but nice gamedrive through Moremi. Tracks4Africa guided us through the park and it was remarkably accurate. There were no spectacular sightings, but the park is beautiful and we enjoyed driving around with Gigi. After the gamedrive we had a quick breakfast and went on our way to the next stop, Khwai Hippo Pools Campsite.
The road to Khwai was very short and we arrived early enough to have some lunch at the campsite. Khwai is not a game reserve or a national park. The area is open to both wildlife and the communities living there. That means gamedrives go through (or start at) the small villages and you can see lions, leopards and wild dogs just minutes away from these villages.
We did not plan any game drives, but we wanted to do a mokoro tour. Mokoros are the local canoes, pushed forward by the 'human engine' with a long pole. After lunch we were picked up by our guide at the campsite to walk to the canoes. The walk was along the river where hippos were laughing and snorting in the water, while looking straight at us. If there is one animal we do not like, it is the hippo.
After getting in the canoe, our guide wanted to show us the hippos. He went closer to them, and they came closer to us. We didn't like it at all, knowing full well what these animals can do with their giant teeth and strong jaws. And they are quite territorial and famous for their bad temper. So no matter how many times our guide told us 'they won't do anything', we had no intention of accidentally coming too close in our fragile canoe just 5 centimeters above the water level. We told our guide one last time to just do the mokoro drive and leave the hippos. Eventually, he listened and moved the canoe backward.
The mokoro ride was amazing. Across the tranquil waters in the Okavango area, looking at the flora and fauna of the area. We really enjoyed the rest of the ride and forgave the guide for the rough start. We learned a lot about the medicinal values of many of the (water) plants and we saw several beautiful birds. We were happy to have done this mokoro ride, but there was one disadvantage.
The mokoro ride was planned late afternoon, and after that we still had to pay, eat and shower. Usually not a problem, but the payment process took waaaaay longer than it should have, as their only terminal had no power and apparently hadn't charged all day. After finally paying, the sun had already set. We still wanted a shower, but the ablutions block was quite a long walk from our campsite, and the hippos could get out of the water any minute. We did not want to meet one of them on our way to or from the ablutions.
We quickly got all our stuff together and armed with headlights we made our way to the ablutions block. The hippos started to laugh harder and splashed the water everywhere. They sounded like they were just a meter away, but due to the darkness and the bushes all around us. We couldn't see anything. We rushed through the shower and tried to get dressed with our headlights and the floodlights outside the ablutions block. Anyone around could have seen anything and everything, but we didn't care. We needed to get dressed again, so we could back to the campsite. In the meantime, the hippos sounded like they were getting closer by the second.
Back at the campsite we had milk and granola for dinner. Easy and quick. Fortunately we hadn't met a hippo, yet. We stuffed our faces and made a bush toilet besides the tent, all in a pitch black night, apart from our headlights. The hippos sounded like they could come around the corner any second now. There was no time to do the dishes, so we just left our dirty bowls and spoons outside on Gigi, as we didn't want our rat to enjoy them (inside the car). We rushed into the rooftop tent and we didn't see any hippo. All night. Probably worried for nothing, but at least we survived. Enough hippos for now.
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