The 5 star Mateya Safari Lodge is located in the magnificent 75,000 hectare malaria-free Madikwe Game Reserve on the border between South Africa and Botswana. Offering a graceful fusion of relaxed comfort in a beautiful setting, Mateya is designed for the discerning traveler. Guests can enjoy a balance of sophistication and comfort, in total privacy and harmony with nature and the very highest standards of personal care and attention at all times.

 
This game rich game reserve is characterized by its extensive plains which slope in a north-easterly and easterly direction towards the Marico River. The Mateya Safari Lodge consists of five individually designed luxury air conditioned thatched suites. The lodge caters for a maximum of 10 guests. Each suite has wonderful comfort features such as: hand crafted mahogany furnishings, en-suite luxury bathroom with secluded open-air shower a unique collection of original African artworks, private deck with natural window sala looking onto a rim flow pool, mini bar and tea/coffee making facilities. With an 8,000 bottle wine cellar, a well stocked library, and full service wellness center the amenity options for decadence are immense.

Madikwe Game Reserve is home to the super 7: Buffalo, cheetah, elephant, leopard, lion, rhino (black and white) and wild dog and activities at Mateya focus on the area’s abundant wildlife. Game-drives and night-drives in open safari vehicles, accompanied by a professional game ranger and tracker, provide outstanding opportunities to view and photograph Africa’s magnificent wildlife at close quarters.

The Khwai River is part of the Okavango’s complex delta system. Located 8 km northwest of the north gate of the Moremi Wildlife Reserve, Khwai River Lodge is one of the oldest safari lodges in Botswana. Overlooking the vast Khwai River floodplains, the exceptional location of Khwai makes it a regular host to elephant, buffalo, lion, leopard, cheetah and wild dogs. Surrounded by nature and the calls of the wild, this is the perfect location for observing the perennial drama of the African bushveld and provides viewing for excellent birding. Known for its large concentrations of big mammals, this is one of the most popular game lodges in Botswana today.

The Moremi Wildlife Reserve—an 1,880-square-mile national park in the heart of the Okavango Delta—provides the dramatic setting for this luxury tented camp. You will be accommodated in one of the 15 luxury air conditioned teak-floored tents, outfitted with canopy beds and en suite baths, with your own viewing platform overlooking the Khwai River. Khwai River Lodge is perfectly designed to blend into the surrounding environment. All luxury tents are housed on raised wooden platforms, offering great views, and shaded by a traditional African thatch roof.  The large private decks are furnished with easy chairs and a hammock, ideal for viewing wildlife, or for enjoying a private dinner in complete privacy. The central complex, where the swimming pool is located, comprises of an under-cover room, a lounge area with a cosy fireplace and air conditioned library with 24 hour internet access, VHS and monitor multisystem equipment, slide projector and screen.

 
From the moment you arrive at Kwai River Lodge, you can sense that you are close to Africa’s heartbeat. Bush hats and desert boots, tall tales and long drinks, a past redolent of trophies and potent sundowners. For decades Khwai River Lodge has hosted guests from all over the world on the safari trail. Rates From: USD 550.00

Built in the magnificent Okavango Delta of Botswana, Sandibe Safari Lodge covers over 270 sq km wilderness. The beautiful thatched lodges were built in organic architecture in one of the most breathtaking landscapes in Africa. Built carefully in a natural clearing, no trees were sacrificed in the building of the lodge.

Sandibe Safari Lodge has eight stylish cottages. Each of them has private viewing platform overlooking of the Okavango Delta wetlands and savannah. All lodge’s rooms has a separate toilet and a refreshing open-air shower. Designed in neutral tones and tactile textures, the rooms are of stone construction, and have large gauze windows.

The main building houses the lounge, dining area and fireplace, TV and video facilities. Activities at Sandibe include game-drives in open 4×4 safari vehicles, bush walks with professional guides, safaris,  boating trips along the permanent waterways, bird watching and more. There is also a swimming pool.

Situated north of the Okavango Delta, Botswana, The Vumbura Plains Reserve is a luxury camp offers a touch of luxury in a private wildlife shelter. Set in a 60 000 hectare private concession, the reserve consists of two separate camps each with completely separate public areas that offering spectacular views across the floodplains.

Each camp has seven wooden chalets with thatched roofs. The luxurious enormous rooms consist of a bedroom, lounge, shower and full en-suite bathroom with an indoor and outdoor shower. They are designed in unusually modern interior and feature its own very private plunge pool and sun-loungers. Each suite also has a “sala” – a comfortable area to lie and relax, watching the waving grasses of the floodplain.

The Vumbura Plains Camp offer a choice of both land and water activities  including boat excursions, nature walks, game drives, open 4×4 vehicles safari year round. There are plenty of leopards, zebra, wildebeest, lion, elephant, cheetah, buffalo, antelopes, pink pelicans and more.

Luxury and elegance union at Sanctuary Chobe Chilwero Lodge. This is an implausibly luxurious abode with retributory 15 temporary cottages, as advisable as  the exclusive sonorous spa on the Botswana expedition track. Guests at Chobe Chilwero faculty relish dumbfounding wildlife sightings, foppish accommodations, prize serving, sensualist meals and close wines. Chobe Chilwero offers travellers a full taste of Africa‘s pristine Wilderness.

All cardinal journalist cottages soul been individually designed to fit in with the Chobe topography and flora. Each room has two showers – one inside and one outside. Apiece cottage has its own private garden where guests can sip cocktails after a day of business watch, or why not like your rattling own nonpublic dinner served under the Human sky.

This superb house also boasts a tearful place, accumulation, oddment and an e-communications country that allows guests to cell in suggest with e-mail and cyberspace message.

 Features include an inside spa tub, Vichy showers, hydrotherapy, start spot, quietude country and cliquish handling flat – one of which is elevated in the treetops.  

Submissive by the Mababe Formation the Chobe Location is individual noted for its vast nationalistic parks, splendid forest reserves and dignified elephant aggregation.

Lagoon Camp is located in the Linyanti, on the shady banks of the Kwando River among tall and ancient African Ebony and Marula trees, under the watchful gaze of the resident hippos. This area is home to huge herds of elephants and buffalo. There are few places in Africa where such concentrated numbers of these animals exist, especially in the dry season. Over the years, many of guests have commented that Lagoon Camp stands out as one of the most beautiful settings of any safari camp.

The shady, treed environment of the camp hosts a great variety of birds and squirrels that visited daily the camp. This contributes to the relaxed calm that prevails at Lagoon. The camp has a guide and tracker system to maximize sightings of game species.

There are 8 luxury safari-style tents. Each tent looks out over the water and has private en-suite facilities, including 24 hour hot and cold running water, open-air showers, flush toilets and modern amenities. Guests can enjoy a diverse wildlife experience all year-round, but the focus is definitely on the water. Activities include: mekoro (dugout canoe) rides, double deck boat cruises, fishing (both spinner and fly), guided walks and morning, afternoon and night drives. There is also a thatched dining room, a bar, a curio shop and a lounge area with small library and plunge pool.

Location: Kwando River, Botswana. Getting there: Kwara is an approximately 45 minute flight from Maun and 50 minute flight to Kasane. The camp is a short drive from the airstrip.

Mombo Camp is a luxury tented camp on Mombo Island in the heart of Moremi Game Reserve in the Okavango Delta, Botswana. Mombo Island is hidden from the world and situated just off the north-western tip of Chief‘s Island. The camp offers luxury tents positioned around Mangosteen, Ebony and Fig Trees, overlooking the vast floodplains.

All rooms all being on raised platforms, the game have free range to wander the park, frequently resting beneath the rooms. Commonly sighted game include buffalo, elephant, giraffe and all their predators. The concentration of wildlife allows for a range of game-viewing opportunities. Game drives around Mombo Island, as well as around Chief’s Island are offered. For a more active exploration of the wilderness, walking safaris are also available.

Mombo and Little Mombo have a ‘kgotla’ or boma for delicious outdoor dining under the stars. Otherwise meals are taken in the beautifully appointed dining areas, which overlook the plains. For those wanting total privacy, there is a private lounge with a private deck. Picnics can also be arranged for those wanting a truly African dining experience.

The camp owns 9 luxurious, tented rooms, raised off the ground with connecting walkways, allowing game to wander freely.Each room is equipped with its own en-suite bathroom, and an additional outdoor shower for those wishing to get even closer to nature. There is also a veranda where you can relax and enjoy the wildlife in privacy.

Abu Camp is luxurious remote place offering three-night stays and elephant-back safaris. Guests arrive and depart together to appreciate, at the same peace, the diversity of flora and fauna found there in the open savannas. Bedfellows stay in custom-made tents set on raised decks adjacent to their own private, natural lagoon. All tents in the camp are equipped with four-poster beds and come complete with full baths and private bathrooms.

Each tent has own private deck, and separate outdoor layered teak deck and viewing platform built around matured sycamore and ebony trees that can double as a dinning area, with fine wine and gourmet cuisine prepared by Abu Camp‘s experienced safari chef. A newly built villa across the lagoon sleeps up to four people and comes with its own chef, butler and private pool.

Abu Camp is named after former resident celebrity elephant Abu. The camp’s elephants grant unprecedented and unfettered access to resident herd of zebra, antelope, giraffe, and buffalo. Sunrise and sunsets rides are offered daily, as well as extended daylong safaris that transplant you into the midst of the wildlife.

Location: Okavango Delta, Botswana. Photos by: Drive South Africa

This is one of most pristine natural regions of the world. Eagle Island Camp is hidden from the world, deep within Okavango Delta, Botswana. The area offers a myriad waterways, vast flood plains and birdlife and mammal sightings. As one of the world’s premier bird-watching locations, Eagle Island Camp is the place of your nature experience. There are 11 luxury tents, and 1 private suite, all luxuriously appointed. Each of them has spacious wooden decks overlooking the lagoon. Furnished with easy chairs and a hammock, they’re offering great views over the surrounding floodplains. 

Attractions are geared towards exploring the area’s scenic and wildlife but the activities are dependent on the water levels. Between June and September when the water is high, Eagle Island Camp offers bird and game viewing by mokoro (dugout canoe), motorboats and walking trails. Activities include: Safari, Wildlife Game, Canoeing, Fishing, Photography, Cruise and dusk excursions in the 14-seater Sundowner cruiser, Swimming. The flying is avaible if you would like to watch the animals from the air, there is a inclusive helicopter safari.

Botswana is a country in Southern Africa and home to one of the world’s great natural occurrence, the quiet Oravango Delta, a 15,000 sq km inland foot plain spread out in the northwestern corner of the country.

Okavango Delta is a paradise of palms, papyrus, crystal-clear channels and backwaters. The surrounding atmosphere is filled with sounds of birds calling, frogs trilling and antelopes running in the reeds. Wildebeest, hartebeest, buffalo and zebra roam the islands. Elephants, hippos and crocodiles wade across channels. The predators rule the night.

So but not only animals are centralize in this oasis. The area is very sensitive and for that reason Botswana government operates a politics of high-income tourism, which makes southern Africa a pricey holiday destination. Of course this doesn’t stop visitors from all over the world to reached these wilderness areas.

There’re many companies which will help tourists to arrange their own trip, that should cover the delta and surrounds, also including flights, transfer, accommodations and game-viewing trips. It’s advisable to spend in the delta three nights or four because of its own unique mood and rhythm.

As well as there’s a lot more to explore in Botswana. To the northeast is sitted Chobe National Park, which is 12, 000 sq km home to 100, 000 elephants. To the south are the splendid Makgadikgadi and Naxi pans and many many Africa’s wilderness zones.

The Okavango Delta is the largest inland delta on Earth. Instead of flowing into the sea, the annual flood of fresh water flows inland, spreading over 15 000km of the Kalahari sand in a maze of lagoons and channels. The River Okavango, which rises in the highlands of Angola, never reaches the sea; instead, its mighty waters empty over the sand of the Kalahari Desert. Here the thirst land of the south meets a blue-green wilderness of fresh water, with emerald reed beds and towering trees. Over the aeon the Okavango River has spread its rich sediment over a huge, almost flat area, in the shape of a giant panhandle.

It now forms the world’s largest inland delta, containing 95% of all Botswana’s surface water. Around its perimeter are scattered the exclusive tourist lodges and camps, unlike any others in Africa. The Okavango’s water is remarkably clean and pure and this is almost certainly due to the fact that it passes through very sparsely populated areas on its journey from Angola. Despite this, a staggering 660 000 tons of sediment a year are delivered to its great alluvial fan. The slow drift of the annual flood into the Delta, taking weeks to push in from Shakawe on its upper reaches to Maun, on its eastern edge, causes minimal turgidity. This, combined with the very effective filtration action of the dense reed beds and papyrus groves, results in water of almost startling clarity. Part of the Delta has been incorporated into the Moremi Game Reserve, set aside in 1963, by the local community to preserve the wildlife.

The delta has a number of Lodges and Camps, many of which are in private concessions, bordering the Park, and therefore allowing for more intimate game viewing. Game drives are not possible at many lodges, therefore walks and mekoro excursions are the order of the day – and there is possibly no better way to experience nature than on the tranquil waters of this magnificent place.

During the study, Bird Life Botswana was in particular interested in the slaty egret a vulnerable water bird living only in Southern Africa. The egret, which has its main breeding grounds in the wetlands of Zambia, Mozambique and Botswana’s Okavango Delta, is by now estimated to have a total population of only about 4,000 birds. The survey team managed to collect “valuable data on the ecology” of the egret, Pete Hancock of Bird Life Botswana says. The familiar favourites are there in force too – various antelope, elephant, giraffe, hippo, lion, leopard and the like.

In most places the delta canals are shallow, so a safari generally takes place in dug-out canoes called mokoros, which can hold two people plus the poler, who stands in the back of the mokoro like a Venetian gondolier and pushes you through the marshy delta, only he doesn’t sing or try to sell you a phoney hat at the end of the ride. He just tries to keep you from getting attacked by hippos.