About that time in the Okavango
mjau.
“-You will never go”.
-That’s where most adventures go to die before they even begin. It’s what you tell yourself. “-ahh, it sounds good.. BUT” and then life takes over and your dreams of going on an adventure ends up in the folder marked “things I wish I did when I could” and just like that everything is too late.
So the way my mind works is that everytime I tell myself just that; “you’ll never go” or “you’ll never do it” it means that I then have to do it. So far it has served my exceptionally well, I got tons of memories for life, some of them recorded and some of them stay rent free in my mind. with that said not all of them were successful but I got wiser each time.
I couldn’t really picture myself in Africa let alone Botswana, it sounded so distant, it felt surreal to even be there. I felt like I was stepping right on to the set of a Nat Geo film. I went in April so I hadn’t really adjusted to the light, heat or sun that much, I ended up getting heat stroke one day but that’s a price I will happily pay again.
The last flight in was definitely from the earlier days of the 90’s or older, I wasn’t sure we’d make it but I guess things were built different even back then. I landed in Maun where Francois was waiting along with the rest of the group.
I first heard of Francois back in 2020 when I was on stage in Amsterdam presenting the winners of the Fjällräven polar expedition. We chatted a bit and then finally met last year on the Swedish Fjällräven Classic. There he said it, “come to Botswana”… my first response was yeah, sure! Then I started thinking and all the doubts started to set in and that’s when I knew I had to go.
Now, this isn’t my first rodeo, I've travelled quite a bit now and i’m getting less young. I knew beforehand that this will go extremely fast so I made sure that I was ready for everything and jumped on every single chance I could to go out and embrace whatever laid ahead, if it was just a short drive or a walk outside the fence I was there, listening learning and taking it all in.
I struggle with trying to explain the feeling I had when being there, it’s a mix of excitement and a crazy lust for life. I felt alive in a way that I only feel when I’m on an adventure.
I can spend a lifetime talking about the nature and animals that we saw and experienced, I try to show it on my YouTube channel but both me and Francois realize that some things are better experienced IRL and this is definitely one of those things.
That’s why we (Francois did all the hard work) created an opportunity for you to join us next time we go! On my website, go to events and click ‘Expedition Okavango Delta’ there you’ll find all you need to know! If you want to get an appetizer you can see the video on my YouTube channel.
