A male lion with a dark-edged mane walks toward the camera through dry golden grass, tail curled, under a pale hazy sky

Area · Beyond the eastern edge

Mababe

A private reserve on the road between Moremi and Chobe, on the floor of an ancient lake — open plains, a marsh where the herds gather, and the night drives and walks the reserve itself cannot offer.

At a glance

Signature characterOpen-country spectacle — buffalo and elephant in numbers, lions hunting in daylight

Where it sitsEast of the reserve, beyond the Khwai — a private reserve on the way to Savuti and Chobe

Best broadlyRewarding all year; the marsh at its fullest after the summer rains, the walks best in the dry

AccessA light aircraft out of Maun to the reserve's strip, or by road along the Khwai on a mobile safari

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The area

The floor of an old lake.

Mababe is where the Okavango's water ends, and it is not like the rest of Moremi. East of the Khwai, past the reserve's boundary, the delta's last water spills into a treeless bowl of pale clay — the Mababe Depression, the bed of a lake that dried out thousands of years ago, with the Magwikwe Sand Ridge as its old shoreline. Some fifty thousand hectares of it are a private reserve, between Moremi and the wild country of Chobe. At the depression's centre is the marsh: the summer rains turn it into a wetland of some twenty-five square kilometres, and everything comes to it — buffalo in herds of a thousand and more, gatherings with few equals in Africa; elephant in hundreds at the water; zebra on migration; and lions that hunt them by day, with clans of hyena, dozens at a time, disputing every kill.

This is open country — plains, dust, herds to the horizon — and none of the lily-covered channels and poled mokoro that the Okavango's name brings to mind. Because it is a private reserve, its rules are its own: the vehicle stays out after dark with a spotlight, walks go out when the grass allows, and no more than twenty vehicles are allowed across the whole reserve, so meeting another is rare. One camp stands in it. On its own, Mababe is one face of Botswana, and a startling one; beside a water camp it is the other end of the range.

On the map

Between Moremi and Chobe.

Mababe lies east of the Khwai, outside the reserve's boundary: the Khwai River is its western edge, where the river's last reach meets the Mababe's channel, and the Magwikwe Sand Ridge is its northern one, with Savuti and central Chobe beyond. Moremi's North Gate at Khwai is the road connection west; the road north to Savuti climbs the sand ridge. The depression's floor is flat, pale and open, and the camp stands at the marsh.

See how the whole reserve divides

MababeS 19°11′ · E 24°00′

01Wildlife here

Herds to the horizon.

The marsh is the engine, and scale is the point. When it holds water the depression has buffalo herds among the largest on the continent on its flats — a thousand and more, the dust of them visible from a long way off — with elephant in the hundreds on the water, zebra passing through on migration, and the predators that shadow all of it. The lions here hunt in daylight, which is rare, because the herds are too big to wait for; spotted hyena clans dozens strong follow them and contest the results.

After dark the country changes cast: in the spotlight a genet, a civet, spring hares, and now and then a serval; the darkness out here is complete. Along the Khwai's permanent water on the western edge the bull elephant stand relaxed and close in the dry months. None of it is on a schedule; the herds follow the water, and the water follows the rains.

The full cast, and where the Big Five stands The wild dog, in depth

02When it suits

Two seasons, two different places.

Mababe's calendar is not the lagoons'. The marsh fills with the summer rains, from around December, and holds its water into the dry; the herds gather on it through the dry months, so the spectacle builds through the first half of the year and peaks as the water shrinks. By the dry months, June to October, the grass is low, the walks are at their best, the nights are cold and clear, and the game is on the permanent water — the marsh while it lasts, the Khwai always.

In the green months heavy rain closes the depression's clay to vehicles, so the road route between Moremi and Savuti goes the long way round; the camp's guests fly in. The green season's own gifts are the birds, the calves and the storm skies. Since Mababe is nearly always one stop of several, the month is best chosen for the whole trip.

The month decision — water, game, heat and rates What the weather does, month by month

03After dark

The drive that does not end at sunset.

A private reserve keeps its own rules, and Mababe's are the ones the reserve proper cannot offer. The afternoon drive does not turn for camp at sunset; it goes on under a spotlight, after the animals that keep to the dark — a pair of eyes in a thicket, caught, held, lost again, and the cold rising off the clay. Walks go out in the months when the grass is short enough to see over and a walking guide is in residence; a buried hide at the water's edge puts elephant feet at the window. And since one camp has the whole ground to itself, a sighting lasts as long as it is worth.

Mababe village, on the reserve's edge, adds the human side: the elders' stories, tracking as it was taught before vehicles, and the baskets the area is known for, woven in front of you. Mokoro and boats do not feature here; for the water, pair Mababe with a lagoon camp.

Drives, walks, mokoro and boats, compared Xakanaxa — the water camp to pair it with

Sleep in the depression and sunset is not the end of the day — the herds until dusk, the spotlight after dinner, the sky through the roof.

04Getting here

Fly in, or come through on the ground.

Most guests fly. From Maun a light aircraft lands on the reserve's strip, and camp is a drive across the flats. The flights are shared seat by seat between camps, so Mababe joins Khwai, the Xakanaxa lagoons or Chobe in a single trip.

By road, Mababe is the middle of the way from Moremi to Chobe — the mobile safaris follow the Khwai east from North Gate into the reserve, then climb the Magwikwe Sand Ridge north to Savuti, the slowest ground of that route. It is a route for a guided mobile camp or an equipped four-by-four, and the practicalities are answered in full elsewhere.

Flights, gates and the road in Chobe and Moremi in one trip — with Mababe between

Where to stay here

One camp, and the confluence beside it.

The private reserve holds a single camp. Mokete stands alone in the depression at the marsh — tents whose roofs slide back for the stars, a plunge pool on each deck, a sunken hide at the water, and day and night drives on ground no other camp's vehicle uses. Where the Khwai's final reach joins the Mababe, on the western edge, Nokanyana Lodge stands at the river junction with the game walking past the deck — a lodge on the Khwai side, with walks and private traversing of its own.