South of the camp lie the permanent swamps; a true deep-water environment. You’ll find large stands of both papyrus and phragmites reeds, often with waterberry and water fig trees dotted amongst them. Look down in some of the deeper main channels here and you’ll find the water opaque; heavy with sediment.
However, in most of the lagoons and the slower channels you’ll be able to see right to the Kalahari sand at the bottom, and any water creatures or plants there. Amongst the tangle of weeds, ask your guide to point out the delicate tangle of stems belonging to one of the Okavango’s many species of bladderwort (Utricularia species). These usually form a submerged tangle of green, hair-like stems with tiny, thin leaves. Dotted amongst these are numerous small ‘bladders’ which, when touched by a small invertebrate like a mosquito larva, can suck the animal in and capture it. The bladder then digests the animal, and in the process gets valuable nitrogen, which is in very short supply in the mineral-impoverished waters of the Okavango.
Much easier to locate, floating on the surface of the lagoons, you’ll find the fan-shaped, serrated leaves of the water chestnut, Trapa natans. This is often found on the edges of the lagoons, and is interesting not so much for its white flowers, but for the horned seedpod which it forms. The barbs on this will latch on to the fur or skin of animals, as an aid to dispersing its seed. Their large size suggests that the area’s numerous hippo are involved.
Move away from the water, north of camp, and you’ll start entering the drier parts of the Kwara Reserve. You’ll see that between the dry and wet, there’s a transition zone where the bush is a mixture of ancient tree-islands surrounded by plains that were once flooded. The tree-islands here were once more distinct, and surrounded by true floodplains, but as this area has dried out, the vegetation on the plains has grown and blurred the distinction between plains and tree-islands. Similarly, the salt deposits that are often found at the heart of the tree-islands have dissipated.
Like many areas on the edges of the Delta, this is in the very slow process of change. This zone was once wet, and now its landscapes and vegetation are very, very gradually reverting to landforms and vegetation of the drier areas – a process that will take millennia to complete.
Here you’ll find most of the Delta’s usual species of trees, from African mangosteens to jackalberries and both real fan and wild date palms. Plus a few species more often seen in the drier areas of Chobe like Kalahari appleleaf, Lonchocarpus nelsii, and silver cluster-leaf, Terminalia sericea.