Overview
Chief among expedition discoveries are the ghost elephants of Angola, long thought extinct, decimated by decades of civil war, but now reappearing in the farflung highlands wilderness.
Follow intrepid explorer Steve Boyes as he leads the National Geographic Okavango Wilderness Project, documenting the little-known lakes and rivers flowing into the Kalahari to create the vast Okavango, a region supporting the world’s largest elephant population as well as lions, cheetahs, and hundreds of bird species.
For miles on end of twisting waterways, Boyes and his fellow explorers pole flatboats through leech-filled swamps, often with nothing more than satellite imagery and hippo trails to guide them. Through dense bush or mud-thick waters, they haul the boats by hand. An angry hippo threatens to overturn the caravan; dense swarms of bees buzz into explorers’ ears and eyelashes. In Angola, closed off by war for decades, the team tracks ghost elephants—likely a subspecies, thought to have disappeared forever.
By day they press on, by night they camp under the stars. Lions roar and hyenas howl in the distance. Locals become friends and fellow travelers—guardians of the rivers, sharing generational knowledge to unite in the protection of these lands that they call the “source of life.”
With more than 100 photographs and maps, including a foreword by Prince Harry, portraits of local wisdom keepers, and an inspiring storytelling style, this beautiful book will fascinate and reward anyone who yearns for a glimpse of primeval wilderness still thriving on the planet.
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