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Write a User ReviewThe Jewel in Botswana’s Crown
This is my favourite place in all of Africa, a breathtakingly beautiful watery wonderland. It is an expensive trip, with mainly high-end lodges and access by charter flight, but in my opinion worth every dollar. Depending on location and time of year, lodges offer a mix of game drives, nature walks, boat excursions and, best of all, the mokoro canoe trips. Make sure you check which activities are on offer.
It is so magical to be low down on the water, silently gliding through the reeds and lily pads, as the wildlife splashes past. This is a very different experience to being higher up in a noisy vehicle.
The Delta has an abundance of wildlife, including lechwe antelope, lots of other antelopes and large populations of elephants. There are lion, leopard, wild dog and occasionally cheetah, although don’t expect to see predators up close if you’re on a walking safari or in a boat or mokoro.
The Delta is also home to a myriad of birdlife, with the large ginger Pel’s fishing-owl top of every birder’s wish list.
Heaven on Earth
That’s what my first impression was of Botswana’s Okavango Delta as I flew above it in a small airplane. There was water everywhere. The flat expanse of flooded land below was a world of olive-colored islets, pea-green water channels, and sky-blue expanses of shallow lakes and ponds. Animal trails, cut by the millions of antelope, elephants, and other African beasts that call this wetland their home, snaked through the scenery, cutting it up into an emerald mosaic.
Wow! What an incredible place – a 15,000km2-plus region of seasonally inundated wilderness where animals rule and humans have yet to sully.
The Okavango River, the mother to all of this flooding, begins life in the Angolan highlands, but unlike nearly every other watercourse on earth, it doesn’t eventually empty out into the sea. Instead, every year it dumps an average of 11km3 of water into an inland estuary… Water that is sucked down into
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the thirsty dry Kalahari sands or else evaporates beneath an African sun.The Okavango is a true oasis in the semi-arid desert that is the Kalahari, and as you can imagine, all that moisture (and subsequent greenery) attracts countless animals like moths to a flame. As you explore the waterways and sandy tracks by car, boat, or on foot, expect to see elephants and lions, hyenas and leopards, as well as large congregations of buffalo, zebra, and antelope. You might even spot a rhino, although admittedly, they are far scarcer than most of the other denizens.
I get super excited whenever I have a trip to the Okavango scheduled because I know I’ll always be overwhelmed by the sheer diversity and biomass of the wildlife I encounter there.
You’ll be hard-pressed to find its equal when it comes to an excellent, all-encompassing safari adventure destination.
Prolific Wildlife, Stunning Landscapes
The Okavango Delta is probably the best safari destination in Africa – for the sense of wilderness that’s increasingly hard to come by, its stunning waterway-laced landscape, and its incredible wildlife. Predators and prey gather around water sources making it possible to see wild dogs taking down red lechwe and lions hunting buffalo – both of which I’ve seen myself. I’ve also been really lucky with leopards here – on my last stay, I saw three different leopards in three days. The camps here are all small with a light footprint, but they are also the most expensive properties on the continent, part of the low impact, high cost model the government introduced some years ago. Elitism aside, it’s worked to protect the delta and prevent the overtourism experienced by other popular destinations, such as the Maasai Mara and Kruger National Park.
Nature at Its Finest
This watery wonderland, surrounded by a parched, cracked countryside, is a wonder to see flying in on a light aircraft. In fact, flying is how most people get around between the lodges, private concessions and public reserves such as Moremi GR. The delta is indeed beautiful but it is also prolific in wildlife. The Big Five can all be found in good numbers although rhino is not as common. The area is famed for its conservation with authorities putting into place low impact, high-end tourism, meaning there are luxury bush lodges, limited in number and usually with only 10 to 12 chalets or safari tents. If you want bush luxury, plentiful wildlife and guides with high levels of expertise, there is no better place in southern Africa. It’s very good for families too with some lodges catering for kids. A highlight for me was doing a mokoro trip – basically a canoe gliding silently amongst the reeds and around the hippos of the waterways – extremely relaxing and a unique way to experience this watery paradise.
Africa’s Greatest Waterborne Safari!
I spent two weeks living on the Okavango Panhandle, near the point where the Okavango flows into Botswana from Namibia's Zambezi Region. I was working on a scientific study, collecting data on the Okavango's outrageous crocodiles. We would go out at night in a boat with spotlights and catch crocodiles (big ones with a noose, babies by hand...very quickly!). Apart from lechwe and sitatunga (and the big hippo pods) the crocs are probably the great highlight of this area. Seeing a 6 metre croc rise out of shallow water alongside your five metre boat is an unforgettable experience!
The scientists on the study estimated that should you try to swim the 40-metre width of the river at this point your chances of survival would not be as good as 50-50. One of the most surprising and pleasantest sightings I had in this area were of the otters that came floating down the river past our camp almost every morning!
The Rare Jewel in Botswana’s Safari Crown
The Delta is an absolute mecca for wildlife and birdlife alike. There are an estimated 200,000 large mammals in and around the delta when it is at its busiest, though many are not year-round residents, moving elsewhere during the summer rains then returning for winter. When you see big game in the delta, you’ll notice that it often seems to be on the move to somewhere or other. Bird species number more than 400 and include the iconic African fish eagle, Pel’s fishing owl, crested crane, lilac-breasted roller, hammerkop, ostrich, and sacred ibis. I never thought birds would really be my “thing” until I first visited the delta.
Contrary to what I had imagined
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from its worldwide fame, the delta remains a largely unspoilt wilderness, in large part because many of its exclusive lodges can only be accessed by plane, which in itself makes for a truly memorable African experience.But for me the highlight will always be exploring the calm waters in a mokoro (dugout canoe).
Tranquil Waters
The Okavango Delta has featured in so many books and television documentaries that I felt I already knew it long before I visited for the first time. I’ve always found the fact that it floods in Botswana’s dry season delightfully quirky. Torrential rain on the mountains of Angola causes the waters of the Okavango River to surge southward, but they never make it as far as the ocean – instead, in July and August, they fan out over the northern Kalahari to be gradually sucked dry.
The result – a huge, seasonal expanse of sparkling streams, lakes and islands – is every bit as beautiful as the books and documentaries suggest. The best way to experience it is, of course, from a mokoro – the Batswana answer to an Oxbridge punt. As you’re paddled along channels lined with waterlilies and reeds, you can enjoy sightings of malachite kingfishers, painted reed frogs, elephants and hippos in blissful peace and quiet.
Southern Africa’s Greatest Inland Swamp
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whether you are a first-time safari-goer set to marvel at the sight of a lily-trotting jacana, or a more experienced birder seeking a glimpse of the near-endemic slaty egret. More outlying concessions offer much better game viewing, with lion, African hunting dog, eland and sable antelope all locally common. But this is one reserve that truly feels like so much more than the sum of its quantifiable parts – incredibly peaceful, very atmospheric, and unique.Unbeatable Wildlife and Wilderness
The Okavango Delta is arguably southern Africa’s premier safari destination, offering mokoro (dug-out canoe) trips along its placid waterways, wilderness camping and a full cast of African wildlife. I had many of my most memorable safari experiences here, on a one-week group trip with Bush Ways Safaris. As much as seeing African wild dogs regurgitating meat for their pups, or a leopard dozing in a tree with a freshly caught impala, I will never forget the thrill of spending a week in the bush. Ours was a ‘semi-participatory’ safari, so we had to help set up camp, erecting showers, pitching tents and so on. At night, eyes shone at us from the velvety darkness beyond the campfire, and growls, snorts and roars interrupted our dreams.
Any visit to this 16,000-sq-km network of lagoons, wetlands, channels and savanna is likely to be the experience of a lifetime. Just do some thinking about how you want to tackle it. I had a fantastic time on dry land, but many people rave about mokoro trips and seeing it all from a light aircraft.
Wetland Wonders
My own explorations, being undertaken on the cheap, have taken me only a short
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distance from Maun, yet this was far enough to feel thoroughly lost among the endless waterways, and to enjoy such wildlife highlights as discovering a roosting Pel’s fishing owl, tracking a cohort of bull elephants on foot, finding leopard tracks around my tent in the morning and watching a sitatunga splash across the bows of our mokoro. The Okavango is a magical place, so get there any way you can: just do your homework first – so you know exactly what to expect in the region you visit – and start saving those pennies.The Most Beautiful Place in Africa
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materials) and skim slowly across a pink-tinged lake surface that the delta is at its most utterly magical.Not only is the delta scenically blessed, it’s also wildlife abundant. After many years of travel all around East Africa, I was left speechless by my first trip to the Okavango Delta and the realisation that within two weeks I’d seen probably more elephants than in the previous twenty years of safaris combined! On that trip I interviewed well-known Botswanan conservationist Map Ives, who runs the Botswanan government’s rhino program and is environmental officer for the highly regarded Wilderness Safaris, and he described the delta as “An Ark” and I couldn’t agree more. On a continent where wildlife numbers are so often falling and natural spaces being swallowed by (needed) development, the Okavango Delta is serving as something of a repository for wildlife that is under threat elsewhere. The greater region (incorporating all of northern Botswana and parts of neighbouring countries) is home to the largest elephant populations in Africa, a fast-growing rhino population, huge herds of buffalo, wild dogs and big cats. It really is an Ark come to the Garden of Eden.
Combined with stunning wildlife viewing and sublime views are some of the best safari camps and lodges in Africa with superb guides, an air of real exclusivity and a genuine wilderness sensation, and the possibility to engage in all kinds of exciting activities including boat rides, horseback safaris and walking safaris. Yes, a safari in the Okavango Delta can (but doesn’t always have to) be eye-wateringly expensive, but if there’s any possible way you can afford it, I promise you won’t be disappointed!
One for the Bucket List
The Okavango Delta thoroughly deserves its legendary status amongst safari destinations. The Okavango River, flowing in from Namibia, spreads out once across the border into Botswana into a labyrinth of channels, floodplains and islands. Between July and September, when water levels are highest, the Delta is a watery oasis in an otherwise dry zone; naturally, wildlife and visitors are drawn to it like magnets. Many areas of the Delta are given over to private game reserves, many of which are eye-poppingly expensive, and because of the relative difficulties of access, this whole area is notoriously budget-unfriendly, although bargains can be found, particularly outside high season.
I’ve always loved taking to the waters of the Delta in a mokoro (traditional dugout canoe) or motorboat and camping on the various islands. I’ve had my fair share of EXTREMELY close wildlife encounters here too; including a hyena in our kitchen tent and elephants pushing down trees within meters of where I was sleeping. It’s important to respect the directions of your guide.
The Okavango Delta: Africa’s Watery Heart
In recent years, Chitabe (and neighboring Qorokwe) has become one of my favorite safari destinations on earth. I thought my first visit
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was too good to be true, but on a recent visit, I saw a cheetah mum with six nearly-adult cubs, spent time with around 30 lions, had a leopard all to myself for more than two hours, followed a pack of 20 African wild dogs while they hunted and killed impala then fought with spotted hyenas for the spoils, and communed with dozens of elephants – all in just two days.Africa’s Magical Everglades
Only when you fly over the