It is a cool overcast monday morning after a steaming hot few days. An elephant slooshes and wallows in the reedbed out of sight, but filling the view with his sounds. Its time for us to move again. Tomorrow or the next day - whenever there are seats available on an outgoing plane - we will lift off from the dusty strip, soaring over the palm trees and wild sage grasslands. We will hum steadily, high above the meandering arms of the Okavango Delta, interlaced with hard etched elephant paths linking muddy waterholes.
Then we will land in Maun. The sprawling metropolis of safari town yielding a cacophony of traffic noises and charter aircraft arriving and leaving in a wheel of never ending transit traffic . Maun is the safari spring board of northern Botswana.
Just opposite the airport is a cafe bistro where tourists, safari operators and pilots meet and linger - filling time between ETA's and ETDs - or just linking with friends passing through. It is rich in people watching opportunities against the backdrop of the river of traffic.
But for now the rhythmic heart beat of a turtle dove calling overlays the orchestral symphony of bird calls from water and woodland. These sounds soothe the soul and lighten the heart strings.
The grasses here smell of wild herbs and water - sage, thyme, basil. I wish i could bottle it and take it with me. My body loves to breathe it in. And each time we return I am overwhelmed by the fragrances and sounds that contrast so absolutely from the sounds of our man made world.
(sorry no pics this time - internet too slow)
