Magical Botswana: Savute and Okavango Delta

It was interesting to see that many delegates at Comminution ‘23 were accompanied by their families, or intend to bring them to the  next conferences. There are very many options for staying on and a safari is one of the best. South Africa's Kruger National Park (posting of 26 July 2011) is an obvious choice but Botswana has some of the best game viewing opportunities in Africa.

After Comminition ‘23 Barbara and I took the 2 hour flight from Cape Town to Maun and then  a short flight to Savute, a remote corner of Chobe National Park (posting of 22 July 2015) in northern Botswana, renowned for its strangely unpredictable water channel.

Savute

Savute Elephant Lodge

We spent three nights at the Savute Elephant Lodge, where we could relax and let the animals come to us at the nearby waterhole.

Botswana is home to around 130,000 elephants, the largest population of any country.....

---and Chobe National Park has the largest concentration, with around 50,000

But on our three game viewing drives we could really appreciate the benefits of safari in showing the immense diversity of life on earth and the multitude of small animals and birds which we had never seen or heard of before. And we were glad to have our two experienced guides who sought out the more familiar animals, often well camouflaged in the bush, although we saw only four of the Big Five, as sadly rhinos were poached out of this area during the Covid years when there were no ranger patrols.

With guides Moss and John

The life insurance premiums for antelope and zebra  must be very high here, as they are always on the look out for predators, the concentration of lions and leopards being particularly high in this region.

Okavango Delta

After three nights at Savute we flew to the Okavango Delta, a vast and varied ecosystem created as the Okavango River flows into the Kalahari desert in Botswana. 

The vast wetlands begin to flood in May as the Okavango River reaches its delta in the harsh Kalahari, with its full volume of water from the Angolan highlands at the end of the rainy season, but the delta was dry during our visit in late April and what would have been a vast lake in front of our cabin at Eagle Island was a richly vegetated marsh full of grazing antelope, elephants, buffalo, zebra and baboons, all of which had easy access to the lodge and its cabins!

Temporarily redundant tourist boat on the marshlands

The amazing variety of lush grasses on the floodplains are a botanist’s paradise, and provide perfect hiding places for the many predators and we were lucky to have two excellent guides, Robert and Candy, who somehow managed to find a pride of lions just before nightfall, and a young leopard on his impala kill.

With guides Robert and Candy

Hard to believe that this is in the heart of the Kalahari Desert

And what better way to end another great African experience than a sundowner by a hippo pool while watching another splendid African sunset.

We would highly recommend this 6 day Botswana safari after a Cape Town conference. If you are interested, contact MEI’s conference agent Rene Simpson (simpsontours@gmail.com) who can tailor this, or any other tour, to your requirements and budget.

@barrywills