Navigating the Winding Waterways of the Okavango Delta

Hundreds of trickling streams in the semi-arid highlands of Angola join forces with two mighty rivers that flow through Namibia and into Botswana, then spill into a 4,630-square-mile fan-shaped wetland, before vanishing into the sands of the Kalahari Desert. Annual floods propel the Okavango River along its 1,000-mile downhill course, pushing with it 2.5 trillion gallons of water that fuel a profusion of life through a huge network of palm islands, channels and lagoons. As the water engulfs the previous season’s parched landscape, virtually everything it touches is reborn. Hundreds of Indigenous communities along its banks depend on these life-giving waters. For a decade, the delta has been protected as a water source by UNESCO.

CN TRAVELER