Contiki Cape to Delta: En Route to the Okavango Delta

The trip to the Okavango Delta was a long one, so long that we couldn't make it there in one day. Contiki broke it up with a pretty cool, unique itinerary. Before we even got settled in for our drive, though, we literally came across another pack of wild dogs eating on the side of the road. We must be one of the luckiest groups ever when it comes to seeing wild dogs.

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After nearly a full day of driving, we pulled into our accommodations for the night - Gweta Lodge. It was quite a large complex for what seemed to have a small amount of rooms, but it had a full restaurant and the rooms were quite comfortable.

Once we dropped our bags off, we met in the main area of the hotel and boarded a safari vehicle en route to the Makgadikgadi Salt Pans.

We drove through a huge complex network of paths without signs for about a half hour before stopping to look at a baobab tree - I had seen these a few years prior on my trip to East Africa, but they are still one of the coolest trees I have ever seen. They have thick trunks and strange looking, with a vast root network above ground and below. The trees are known as the "Tree of Life" and are what the main tree in Disney World's Animal Kingdom are modeled after as it has a large water storage network and medicinal qualities.

We hopped back in our vehicle and found the "Meerkat Man", who's job it is to follow the meerkats as they move from location to location. We were able to get out and take pictures of the meerkats, some of them went right up to people in my group.

After about 20 minutes, we continued on towards the Makgadikgadi Salt Pans. It was like something I have never seen in my life and we had a lot of fun with forced perspective photography and enjoyed the sense of "nothingness".

After a while, the sun started to set and a line of cows started walking across the horizon. It was an amazing sight with rays of sun peeking through the clouds.

As it was getting dark, it was time to leave so our driver could figure out how to get to our next stop - a campfire below a baobab tree while we gazed up at the stars. It was another incredible moment during this trip, I really felt like I appreciated being outside and in nature like never before.

We retired back to the hotel after an hour or so, grabbed dinner at the restaurant, and hit the sack. We were exhausted after a full day of traveling and had another early morning the next day for the remainder of our trip to the Okavango Delta!