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Into the Okavango

A 2,400km journey from source to sand.

By James Kydd

August 17^th, 2021

In 2015 we conducted a megatransect along the entire length of the Okavango River. Through science and media, our objective was to help bring international attention and lasting protection to one of the world’s most important and understudied river basins. With a team of scientists and explorers and six traditional canoes (called mokoros) we covered 2,400km through Angola, Namibia and Botswana, a journey that took us four months, revealed over 20 new species to science and forever changed our lives. Below are a collection of posts that were first published on social media channels during the expedition:

There were times during our first two months on the Cuito River that I would feel what I would best describe as a vaccuum in my chest. A longing feeling, almost a mourning, that continually tugged on my sleeve.

It was a scent that unravelled the source of my sadness. For those that do not know the smell of old elephant dung it may seem a strange thing to delight in. For those of us who do, the scattered bundles of dried grass, wild sages and bark might stir precious memories of winter mornings walking in the kingdom of giants.

I strained my neck from the mokoro looking for any sign of elephants but there was none. No clearings in the canopy, no folded over reeds, no channels through the flood plains. I wondered if the wild was finally stealing my hold on reality. Could a relic population have survived in the forests of the upper Cuito? Elephants have gone undetected for years in forests like Knysna that are a fraction of the size of this one. Yet every time we encountered people on the river we asked if they had seen elephants and the answer was always the same: they had left decades ago because of the war.

One evening while Water and I were out looking for honey we heard a gunshot and decided to investigate. We met two subsistence hunters with a freshly killed duiker and spoke with them in our broken Portuguese. We asked about the animals of the forest with the help of pictures in a book. They pointed out a few of the antelope. Lion they saw rarely. Leopard. I had almost stopped asking when one of the hunter's fingers landed on the picture of the elephant and made my chest pound "Olifant. Si, teng."

“The more clearly we can focus our attention on the wonders and realities of the universe about us, the less taste we shall have for destruction”

The 2015 expedition was captured in the National Geographic documentary Into the Okavango.

Anthropomorphism is described as the attribution of human characteristics, like emotions, to animals. When I did my safari guide training I was taught that it was unprofessional. Most scientists frown on it. However my time spent watching the creatures of our planet has led to me take the opposite stance. I find the word itself arrogant... alluding to our sole ownership of feelings and the separation of 'us' and 'them' that has caused such a rift between us and the natural world we are a part of. Those that believe animals do not experience things like joy, relief, loyalty or love must never have experienced a dog waiting excitedly at the door for the return of their owner.

I watched six elephant bulls crossing the Boteti River at sunset. They had already drunk their fill and the temperature was very cool still; as they reached the deep water they started to swim and play. For half an hour they climbed on each other's backs, submerged themselves and sprayed fountains into the air. Some might say they were testing each other's strengths and establishing dominance hierarchies. But as darkness fell and I watched them still rolling over each other and splashing in the Okavango's water I knew that they were having fun.

I shared a mokoro with Tom Topho Retiyo, a ba'Yei poler and musician. When we started this expedition two months ago I was sad to see that Tom had not brought his Tswororo, a traditional ba'Yei instrument. Due to it being too fragile to transport from Botswana he had decided to make one as soon as he found the required trees in Angola... not realising that that would take two months. Eventually as we got closer to the Okavango we found the wild date palm and he dried its leaves to blow on. Then a couple of days later he found the brandy bush - for the bow and stick - and his face lit up. With great excitement he heated them in the fire, and using rope gradually bent the bow under tension. The bow was notched by Water with a knife to create a rattling noise when strummed with the stick.

Plug in your earphones and listen to a night soundscape from deep in the delta.

Giles Trevethick and Steve Boyes embrace after a hippo capsized their mokoro. Steve's brother Chris in the second mekoro noticed a movement close to Steve and shouted a warning. The water was swirling and it was hard to see anything. Watching from behind all we could hear was Giles saying "WHAT'S THIS??? WHAT'S THIS??" as a huge shadow came at them from under the water. Steve recounts seeing the whiskers on the hippo's face as its teeth pierced the hull of the mokoro. I remember them being airborne and then landing into the water. They clung to the capsized and sinking mekoro with the hippo somewhere below them for a few horrific moments before Chris yelled "SWIM!!" It seemed to take them forever to make it to the bank. This photograph was taken a few minutes later when everyone was safely on land.

Brothers in arms: Pieter Hugo, Tom Riteo and Brian House (photo below, at right) attempt to drag the fully laden mokoro they are harnessed to through the mud, sharp reeds and leeches to Madinari Island. A South African carpenter, a ba'Yei poler, and an American sound artist. Camaraderie under hardship can be one of the most beautiful aspects of human nature.

Main photo below: While we were drifting through one of the many burnt landscapes along the Cuito River a black whirlwind rose from the ashes and hurtled towards our procession of mokoros. I noticed Schnapps and KG immediately drop to their knees, trying to avoid its path. Later I asked Schnapps about his fearful reaction and he told me with a grave face that was an Uxuli and that if it blows through you it might take your soul away. A few weeks later another of these ash-devils came towards the expedition team, this time passing right through one of our friends. The next day he fell very ill, so much so that we had to spend a day off the water to help him recover. That same day I was photographing a distant fire and another ashen whirlwind rose up in front of me, and as I took a couple of steps back I found myself questioning the line between superstition and reality.

Giles Trevethick standing outside our production tent while a hunter's inferno rages behind him. Understanding the culture of these fires and how it is affecting the local people and the ecology was a crucial part of our expedition.

We found ourselves in an Africa of thousands of years ago. A herd of elephant walked right up to our mokoros and drank from the water in front of us. Another herd walked within four metres of Brian and I as we sat watching them from a termite mound; the matriarch gently scanned us with her trunk like she was reading the barcode of our intentions and then led her family past and into the floodplains. We were met by a bull hippo in an explosion of water: a proud and majestic gatekeeper of that passage. We encountered leopard and lion while on foot, the lions roaring around camp almost every evening. One night a hyena stood almost beside me, watching curiously while I enjoyed a moonlit bucket shower. And perhaps most impressive as we drifted down the secretive channels were the thousands of birds that flew up in front of us.... I had never seen anything like it. Sometimes we looked at our teammates in silence, teary-eyed. Sometimes we tried to speak about it, fumbling over the inadequacies of words for what we were witnessing. Inevitably we accepted the dream as real, and continued to pole down the Okavango, set up camp, make fire and food and end another day in a wilderness we hope will last forever.