Moremi
Stay & safaris
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Wildlife & experiences
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Chobe and Moremi
Chobe and Moremi are the two big names of northern Botswana, and they are different kinds of place. Chobe is a river: elephant in their hundreds at the water, and days that run on boats. Moremi is forest, floodplain and lagoon: game drives in close, dense country and, at many camps, time on the water as well, by mokoro or by motorboat, on channels and lagoons and not on a wide river.
A trip that takes in both gets its shape from what happens in between. By air the two are one flight apart. On a guided mobile safari the country in the middle becomes part of the trip: the Mababe private reserve, then Savuti on its old lakebed, with the camp moving ahead of you.
Chobe
Moremi Game Reserve
The line joins the two parks. It is not a road or a flight path.
Chobe
Chobe is the river leg. Elephant stand chest-deep to drink, crocodile lie on the sandbanks, and the dry-season herds walk in file to the water; the days go by boat as much as by vehicle. Its lodges, its riverfront and its seasons have a whole site to themselves.
Chobe, in fullSavuti
Savuti is central Chobe, a long way from the river: an open marsh on an old lakebed, with the Gubatsa Hills at its edge.
Savuti's lion are the reason the name carries so far. The marsh pride, twenty to thirty strong in good years, is one of very few anywhere recorded hunting adult elephant, and it does so after dark in the dry season. The ground is open, and game drives run long.
- The marsh pride at the waterholes, or flat in the shade, by day
- Cheetah on the open marsh, and wild dog in the wetter months
- San rock paintings at the base of the Gubatsa Hills: eland, sable, elephant, the outline of a hunter
Mababe
Mababe is a private reserve of some 50,000 hectares between Moremi and Chobe.
Mababe is a private reserve, so the rules are its own: night drives are permitted, and the walks the national park forbids are on offer when the grass allows. After the afternoon drive the vehicle stays out past dark with a spotlight, and out there the dark is total.
- Genet, civet, spring hare and, with luck, serval in the spotlight
- A morning on foot with the guide out front, reading tracks and checking the wind
- Elephant bulls at the Khwai's water in the afternoon
Ready-made ways to travel the route.
Safari packages that run this country, from the river to the reserve and beyond. Request one as it stands.
Long Way North
Ten days on the ground with one guide and one crew, the camp moving with you: Moremi, Mababe, Savuti.