Okavango is the only river that ends in a desert instead of flowing into open sea. Its delta is a ramification of water imprinted on the land and its contours are continuously re-defined by water. These streams are mirrors for the clouds, their shape changing with the wind. In Botswana you learn that weather is unpredictable but you also learn to recognise when the next rainfall is approaching and it’s time to wear a warm waterproof poncho. At Duba plains, at sunrise, you eat bread toasted on an open fire and then get on a jeep and cross a log bridge on the water among water lilies, ducks and birds. Sometimes there are crocodiles and often hippos floating in the water. It’s December, the rainy season has just started and the vast land that at this time of the year you can cross on a 4×4 opens up in front of your eyes like a green, endless prairie where herds of red lechwe, buffalos and elephants graze. You don’t often see lions but the threat is constant. Trees have the shapes of mammals from the savannah. At midmorning is time to find a safe spot and get ready for breakfast in the bush: American coffee, dry sweet apples, banana muffins and peanuts. And then, out again in the bush for a few more hours of discovery until it’s late and the camp is enveloped by the dark of the night. Termites fly around the light of the lamps. We go to sleep, the sound of frogs like a lullaby.

Words and pictures Meraviglia Paper. Thanks to Great Plains Conservation, Dereck and Beverly Joubert, Alex Walters, Kops (lour guide) and the whole camp staff.