Elephant Herds along the Chobe River
THE spectacle of hundreds of elephant crashing and pulsing in great columns out of torn and dusty woodlands to line up and drink at the river's edge, is one of the most enduring and memorable sights of an African safari.
Nowhere else in Southern Africa is this magnificent ritual more evocative and dramatic than in Botswana's Chobe National Park - home to a massive population of this legendary gentle giant of the African wildlife milieu.
Lying in the north eastern corner of Botswana and easily accessible by air from Victoria Falls, Kasane and Maun, Chobe is one of the great wildlife sanctuaries of Southern Africa.
Here, during the cool morning or late afternoon game drives, the traveler is rewarded with a feast of game making their way to the marshes and rivers - great herds of buffalo, zebra, giraffe, as well as an array of antelope and wildebeest (gnu), along with the magnificent predators which pursue and hunt these herbivores.
Covering a massive 11 700 square kilometers of dusty plains, woodland, savanna and forested floodplain, Chobe is one of the great jewels in Botswana's wildlife crown, and has some of the finest safari lodges in Africa, offering superb game-viewing, sumptuous cuisine and excellent service.
Game viewing is at its best during the dry season, when most of the natural pans have dried up, forcing animals to concentrate alongside rivers and swamps. Savuti Marsh is possibly the best place for lion sightings, because it has several resident prides and the number of waterholes is very limited.
Linyanti Swamp is set to become one of Africa's prime safari destinations, with massive lagoons and river fringes heavily wooded, blending into dry countryside further away from the water - making it a microcosm of the entire Okavango and Kalahari wildlife complex.
