The Okavango Delta emanates in the highlands of Angola, where the mighty Okavango River begins as just a trickle before gradually becoming the third largest river in southern Africa that flows for over 1,600km to reach inland Botswana. Around 60,000 years ago, the river deposited its water into Lake Makgadikgadi, a paleolake believed to have covered over 100,000km² of Botswana’s interior. At a time when we were just dragging ourselves into the Later Stone Age, most of southern Africa was rattled by severe seismic activity that created a tectonic trough. The earthquake (or earthquakes) must have come as something of a shock to the residents of the area but also happened to change the shape of the earth’s crust to block the Okavango’s original path almost entirely.
My wife Anne and I traveled there in the 1990s and I remember it well as being a real gem regards wildlife / scenery / adventure, alongside its unusual geography – so wanted to share this blog with you, via https://africageographic.com/stories/understanding-the-okavango-delta/?mc_cid=83dd6bb3d9&mc_eid=354ac16da2#agtravel-1
The river water had nowhere to go and poured relentlessly into the Kalahari Desert, creating the endorheic basin of the Okavango Delta – one of the largest inland deltas in the world. Today, the Okavango River continues to discharge around 11km³ of water every year into the swamps that spread across an area of between 6,000km²-15,000km² (depending on the time of the year). One of the Seven Natural Wonders of Africa and a UNESCO World Heritage Site, the Okavango Delta is an enormous oasis home to a wide variety of wildlife, and its tourist value contributes around 13% of Botswana’s GDP.
AN ALLUVIAL FAN
The Okavango River flows into Botswana at the small village of Mohembo before fanning out into a combination of twisting channels and lagoons lined by thick beds of papyrus and reeds, initially through a comparatively narrow area known as the Panhandle. The swamplands of the Okavango are permanently flooded, but the bog surrounding them fills seasonally depending upon water levels. The Delta layout is entirely dynamic – every year the water follows different routes depending upon changing sandbanks and blockages. The tectonic trough responsible for the formation of the basin of the Delta is relatively flat. Still, there are many islands of various sizes (the largest being Chief’s Island), as well as salt islands with barren white centres too saline for plant growth.
The waterways around these islands are one of the Okavango’s biggest drawcards, and many of the tourist lodges are found close to some of the more extensive permanent lagoons of the region. Visitors flow to the Delta every year to explore its watery surrounds either by motorboat or on the famous and more traditional mokoro (or mekoro, plural) – a canoe-like vessel that allows visitors to immerse themselves (ideally not literally) in nature as they drift through the reeds. The location of each lodge will determine what activities they can offer guests at certain times of the year.
Other information * Okavango World Heritage site
