In photographs: flying over the Okavango Delta

In the beautiful August issue of Getaway Magazine you’ll find a 10-day 4X4 camping trip from the Makgadigadi Pans through the Okavango Delta and up to Chobe National Park, covering the best of Botswana. It’s called the Botswana Blitz, and it’s 100% adventure. Camping brings you to the heart of the action and it frees up cash to do the really cool stuff, like taking a scenic hour flight over one of the largest freshwater wetlands in the world.

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Did you know that the Okavango Delta is visible from space? Yep. This huge green mass is one of Africa’s greatest wilderness areas.

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We met at Maun Airport for an 8am flight with Air Shakawe, ready for an hour-long cruise over the green Botswana plains (this costs about R1040 per person, depending on the number of people. Cheaper 45-minute flights are also available).

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Recently named a UNESCO world heritage site, the Okavango Delta is an entrancing beauty and her vast reaches are best appreciated from the sky.

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From the air, you can see how tree islands are formed from salt build-up and animal reliance on water is evident from the countless paths that crisscross the emerald expanse.

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Strangely enough, the water levels in the delta are at their highest in winter, despite the lack of rainfall over Botswana. This is because the water network is fed by rains which come down over Angola and eventually flow down into Botswana filling the channels. This makes winter the best time to visit as the delta is swollen and roads are dry enough to traverse – you do not want to get stuck in this mud during summer.

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Thanks to the waterways and marshy land, the Okavango is largely inaccessible and cut off from human activity making it a wildlife haven. Here, the wilderness wins and the abundance of animals is clear to the naked eye.

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Sightings of enormous herds of elephant, slow-grazing giraffe, leaping lechwe, crowds of kudu and hippo wallowing in muddy river pockets are yours for the taking.

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Amazing, right? Well, you can do the epic Botswana Blitz 4X4 adventure yourself for only R9500 per person including this flight over the delta. All the details are in the August 2015 issue.