Botswana

GETTING THERE

• Air Botswana is the National Carrier, Gaborone is the Capital
• Daily flights from Johannesburg to Maun and Kasane and flights from Cape Town on certain days of the week
• Maun is the Gateway to the Okavango Delta
• Kasane is in the North near Chobe and just across the river or road from Victoria Falls (Zimbabwe) or Livingstone (Zambia)
• Excellent network of Light aircraft / charter flights between luxury game lodges in remote areas
• Botswana is combined easily with Victoria Falls (Zimbabwe & Zambia) as well as Namibia

(All Airline carriers, air flights & routings are subject to change).

OVERVIEW

The floodplains and waterways of the Okavango Delta team with wildlife, deemed to be one of the world’s premier wilderness areas, a UNESCO World Heritage Site and one of the 7 Natural Wonders of Africa. The Chobe National Park and Chobe River is one of Africa’s most sought-after safari destinations, where the elephant population is amongst the highest density in Africa, an incredible sight to see in their natural habitat. Cruises on the Chobe River produce amazing wildlife photographic opportunities. The Moremi Game Reserve, is a tranquil, serene environment, one of the most beautiful wildlife reserves in Africa, with mopane woodlands, acacia forests, floodplains and lagoons. It has a great diversity of plant and wildlife. The Central Kalahari Game Reserve is a magnificent desert consisting of open plains with gentle sandy dunes, ancient baobab trees and some of the last remaining Bushmen who impart their valuable knowledge of their traditional survival and hunting skills. The Makgadikgadi Pans National Park, once a super lake, most of the year the pans are a dry salty clay crust, but when the rains come (around January to March), the water and grass of the pans serve as a refuge for animals and birds. It is known for the migration of thousands of animals moving from the pans area in the southeast to the western side. Selinda Reserve protects the Selinda Spillway which links the Okavango and Linyanti river system, it’s huge tracts of dry grasslands dotted with small palm-forest islands offer incredible predator sightings in the dry season.

Okavango Delta
The Okavango Delta is deemed to be one of the world’s premier wilderness areas, the world’s largest inland delta and incredible haven for wildlife. During the dry season, around 260,000 mammals congregate around the delta. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and one of the 7 Natural Wonders of Africa. This beautiful oasis in the Kalahari Desert is flooded annually with water flowing from the Angolan Highlands, all the way to the Kalahari Desert. None of the water reaches the sea, it remains in the desert and gradually evaporates until the next rains and floods.  This area is a magnet for attracting all sorts of wildlife; elephant, lion, leopard, buffalo, hyena, wild dog, hippo, crocodile, giraffe, zebras and a host of other plains game, numerous smaller animals and a myriad of birds.

Game viewing is done on land and water.  Some lodges offer both, while others specialise in one or the other. Safari by water can be enjoyed by gliding peacefully along the waterways in a traditional mokoro (canoe) poled by a polar or a slow motorboat with an expert guide.  On a land safari, one can venture out into unspoiled wilderness on foot or by open 4×4 vehicle in search of predators and plains game.

Moremi Game Reserve
The Moremi Game Reserve,  a tranquil, serene environment, one of the most beautiful wildlife reserves in Africa, with mopane woodlands, acacia forests, floodplains and lagoons. It has a great diversity of plant and wildlife. A prolific amount of game can be seen at any time during the year, only varying slightly with the seasons, however the dry season (July – October) is when the game viewing is at its peak.  Birdlife in Moremi is plentiful with over 500 species.

Chobe National Park
North of the delta is Chobe National Park and the Chobe River,  This vast and picturesque area is known to have one of the largest concentrations and variety of game in all of Africa.  It is one of Africa’s most sought-after safari destinations, where the elephant population is amongst the highest density in Africa, an incredible sight to see in their natural habitat. Cruises on the Chobe River produce amazing photo opportunities of elephants playing and drinking at the water’s edge, crocodiles sunning themselves on the banks and hippo pods cooling in the water. This unique environment coupled with its abundance of wildlife offers a safari experience of a lifetime.

The park consists of four distinct eco systems:

• Serondela: lush floodplains and dense woodlands surround the Chobe River offering sightings of elephant, buffalo, and bee-eaters drinking from the river.
• Savuti Marsh: savannahs and rolling grasslands, home to various buck species and wildebeest during dry seasons and lion, zebra and hyena during rainy seasons.
• Linyanti Marsh: woodlands, lagoons, limitless floodplains adjacent to the Linyanti River; has a concentrations of leopard, elephant, wild dog, and hippo as well as other rare species. In the private Linyanti Wildlife Reserve, game viewing can be done on boats and canoes on the Linyanti River, bird watching is popular in swamps. Fed by the Kwando River, the Linyanti Swamp is the heart of the reserve and is the attraction for the tens of thousands of elephants, one of Africa’s largest Elephant populations, and other animals that concentrate during the dry season. Across the water is Namibia’s Caprivi Strip and to the east is the Chobe National Park.
• The Hot dry Hinterland: lies in-between Linyanti and Savuti Marsh, well known for eland.

Kwando Linyanti
Beside the Kwando-Linyanti river system, four large private reserves (Kwando, Selinda, Linyanti and the Chobe Enclave) protect high concentrations of wildlife. These offer remote, private safaris, include walking and night drives, plus off-road driving which makes for closer and better predator sightings.

Selinda Reserve
This protects the Selinda Spillway which links the Okavango and Linyanti river systems. With its huge tracts of dry grasslands dotted with small palm-forest islands; it is a quite spectacular environment. Predator sightings in the area are incredible in the dry season. Horseback safaris as well as the normal luxury safaris are offered in this area

Kwando Reserve
Private Kwando concession has more than 80km of river frontage. It stretches south from the banks of the Kwando River, through huge open plains and mopane forests to the Okavango Delta

Chobe Enclave
Chobe Enclave is a triangle of land surrounded on two sides by the Chobe National Park and along the north by the Linyanti marsh.  There are a few camps in this area which, despite not being within the national park, enjoy the game rich habitats of both the Linyanti and Chobe Savuti.  The area is a community trust, meaning that local people benefit from tourism and natural resource management within the concession and have an active hand in decision-making.

Central Kalahari
The Central Kalahari Game Reserve is a magnificent desert consisting of open plains with gentle sandy dunes, the largest game reserve in the world encompassing 85% of Botswana. It springs to life in the rainy season bringing with it the zebra migration followed by predators in search of their next meal. There are often sightings of giraffe, brown hyena, warthog, cheetah, wild dog, leopard, lion, wildebeest, and various antelope.

It’s original purpose was to serve as a refuge for the San Bushmen, the first inhabitants of the Kalahari area, residing there for the past 30,000 years. These people lived a traditional nomadic hunter-gatherer lifestyle and lived off the land – only taking what they needed to survive. Some of the last remaining Bushmen are to be found here today, many safari lodges within the reserve often hire people of Bushmen origin to guide visitors into the desert and impart their valuable knowledge teaching their traditional survival and hunting skills.

Makgadikgadi Salt Pans
The Makgadikgadi Pans National Park, once a super lake almost 80,000 sq km in area, dried up due to the changing climate.  Most of the year the pans are a dry salty clay crust, but when the rains come ( around January to March), the water and grass of the pans serve as a refuge for animals and birds. It is known for the migration of thousands of animals moving from the pans area in the southeast to the western side.  Here one can often see magnificent game such as zebra, wildebeest, gemsbok, and springbok moving in herds across the outstretched land  In addition, there are some rocky outcrops and sand dunes dotted around; it is an isolated quiet area with beautiful sunsets and amazing starry skies…a surreal wonderland.

One of the most amazing features of Makgadikgadi, is the flamingos breeding in season on Sowa Pan. Its tiny crustaceans providing nourishment for the largest breeding flocks of flamingos in all of Africa.

Deception Valley
This is the remains of a riverbed extending across the north of the Reserve. It owes its name to the mind trick it plays on its audience, appearing as though full of water from a distance. Piper’s Pan is a stretch of perfectly flat grass, green in the rainy season, turns a beautiful shade of barley gold by May.

Nxai Pan National Park
Home to millennia-old baobab trees, Baines’ Baobabs is a national monument, named after the famous painter and explorer (member of David Livingstone’s expedition group), Thomas Baines