Watch elephants grazing on Chiefs Island during your wildlife drives.
See the sun set over the horizon from your private deck.
Mombo and Little Mombo – Okavango Delta
Mombo and its little sister camp nearby are two of the most luxurious safari camps in Botswana and is, without doubt, one of the most wildlife-rich areas in Botswana. It is known to many wildlife photographers for its ‘Mombo Magic’ and is situated on the northern tip of Chief’s Island, within the Moremi Game Reserve, and within the Okavango Delta. The guest rooms sit under the shade of some large mangosteen, ebony and fig trees, overlooking a wonderful floodplain teeming with animals. One afternoon I saw buffalo, warthog, lechwe, elephant, impala, giraffe, bushbuck and kudu – just within a single hour!
Guests have a very good chance to see lions and leopards here, but of course, wildlife sightings vary. On my last visit a couple of weeks ago we spent time at a hyena den watching the adults try to sleep before a night’s exploration whilst the pups of course gallivanted around creating mayhem. All the adults did show patience, up to a point, before they got up and moved away from the hooligans. Later the same afternoon we saw Naledi, a young female leopard pose for us on a tree, scouting for her next meal. After spending an hour with her, we returned to camp for brunch and all headed to the Mombo Pizza station – delicious!
Sandibe Okavango Safari Lodge – Okavango Delta
Now this is a truly stunning and beautiful lodge with a unique architectural style. The main lodge building and the individual wooden pod chalets are covered in wooden tiles and designed to be reminiscent of a giant-scaled pangolin at rest. The guest ‘pods’ are raised up so you are looking out over the reed beds. Inside they are cool and organic and beautiful, a cross between Scandi and African in style with light colours, organic textures, deep colours laid across lights, and a massive bed adorned in a white mosquito net.
A memory of Sandibe that sticks with me is of sitting on my private deck with the world seemingly stretching ahead of me, resting after the morning’s activities. The only sounds were bird life in the trees around the deck, their calls soothing and restful after a morning’s activity. I drifted and dozed away but gradually had a feeling of being watched. Tentatively opening an eye, I found two bushbuck watching me quietly. I was no threat to them so they dropped their heads and carried on munching away tiptoeing, through the undergrowth.
Positioned on the fringes of the Okavango, Sandibe is for dry-land experiences rather than for water activities. Game drives and walking safaris in beautiful woodlands and over the open plains of this private concession are fantastic experiences, where you can often spot lots of wildlife including the ‘Big Five’. Most exciting of all, you can take the lodge’s private helicopter over the Delta for breath-taking private scenic flights, seeing the marshes, islands, and channels laid out before you. As you swoop across the Delta you get a sense of the vastness of this unique ecosystem.
Drink in the landscape from the shade of San Camp’s tea tent.
Head out at dusk to take sundowners on the Pans.
Meet the San Bushmen and discover how they live in the harsh environment of the Kalahari Desert.
Spend time with the habituated colony of meerkats.
Wake up to the stark salt pans stretching to the horizon.
San Camp – Makgadikgadi Salt Pans
This is a romantic, beautifully made, one-of-a-kind camp set in an extraordinary landscape. San is one of only three camps in the Makgadikgadi Salt Pans and stands out for its style and beauty amongst the starkness of the pans. Sitting on the edge of a huge open salt pan with golden grasslands swaying in desert breezes, tall palm trees stand guard over the brilliant white tents. Inside is a contrast of deeply coloured Persian rugs and four-poster beds, colonial artefacts and furnishings; all rather Bedouin.
Not only is the camp stylish and beautiful, but it comes with breathtaking 360° views of nothingness – here the luxury is being on your own in miles and miles of emptiness. Take a few steps out into the pans and breathe, relax and unwind and watch as your shoulders drop and you become one with the landscape. During your stay here you can visit the habituated meerkats colony, walk with Kalahari San people, search for stone-age tools in the salt pans and end the day with a gin and tonic whilst watching a herd of graceful springbok, their legs seemingly getting longer in the setting sun.
Xugana Island Lodge – Okavango Delta
Xugana, (pronounced Koo-ga-na), is also situated in the heart of the Okavango and borders possibly the most beautiful horseshoe-shaped lagoon in this water paradise. No other camp in the Delta sits on such a large lagoon and, to me, it has the most beautiful setting. Giant ebony, African mangosteen and sycamore fig trees shelter the lodge and the reed-walled rooms that overlook the tranquil waters of the Xugana Lagoon.
The trees provide food and shelter to the numerous bird species that make their home here. For the last 40 years, lesser striped swallows have nested under the office eves every year, whilst Egyptian tomb bats have been using the same wall to return and have their young every year. Each ‘mesasa’ (room) overlooks the lagoon, and the combination of the view and the bird song – which is present from before dawn to bedtime – makes this a truly sublime stay. The tranquil waters of the lagoon add the serene ambience, and ending the afternoon with a quiet canoe ride through the shallows is pure luxury, the colours, the calmness and setting of the sun, G&T in hand, has to be one of the best endings to the day. Xugana’s beauty comes from its genuine and relaxed atmosphere and setting and some of the friendliest staff in Botswana.
Ngoma Lodge – Chobe
Ngoma Lodge features on my beautiful camp list because of the elevated setting overlooking the Chobe River floodplain (over to the lands of Namibia beyond) and the small, intimate feel of the lodge. The main lodge is small yet has a lot of private spaces including different levels that take you to a sundowner spot under a baobab tree. There’s character aplenty – this camp has an elegant, organic African style. Colourful beaded heads serve as lampshades and rock pools and indigenous plants are used as perches by birdlife coming for a quick drink.
Be sure to always have binoculars on hand as the wildlife passes by below on its way to the water’s edge. On one visit I fancied a quick dip in the plunge pool at my room but plans soon changed when a mother elephant and three youngsters came to drink all the water from the pool!
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