CHOBE NATIONAL PARK July 13th, 2013
The Chobe National Park is situated in Botswana’s North West District, with the Chobe River forming the Park’s northern border.It is bordered in the south west by the Okavango Delta / Moremi Game Reserve, and by the Chobe forested parralel to the Zimbabwe border in the east. It is also the country's first national park and is definitely a must visit on your Botswana safari.
The original inhabitants of this area were the San bushmen (also known as the Basarwa people in Botswana). They were nomadic hunter-gatherers who were constantly moving from place to place to find food sources such as fruit, water and wild animals. Nowadays one can find San paintings inside rocky hills of the Chobe National Park.
The park can be divided up to 4 areas, each corresponding to one distinct ecosystem, namely the Serondela area, the Savuti Marsh area, the Linyanti Marsh, and lastly, between Linyanti and Savuti Marshes lies a hot and dry hinterland, mainly occupied by the Nogatsaa grass woodland. This section isn’t well-known but is a great place for spotting elands.
There are many lodges available to choose from in Chobe and Kasane including many that are located directly inside the Chobe National Park or outside in Kasane, a town in Botswana. Kasane is the gateway to Chobe. One can choose between many different accommodation facilities ranging from campsites to private lodges.
If you would like to combine the comfort of a lodge with an exciting Chobe safari experience, there are a great variety of safari lodges in the area surrounding the park which will cater to your needs. From affordable comfort to full-scale luxury, you'll find a lodge that suits your budget and the number of people travelling with you. After an early breakfast, you'll set out on the safari with a knowledgeable guide who will help to make your visit to Chobe an enjoyable and safe one. To enter the Chobe National Park, you have to have a 4x4 vehicle.
The most accessible and frequently visited of Botswana’s big game country, the Chobe Riverfront is most famous for its large herds of elephants and cape Buffalo, which during the dry winter months converge upon the river to drink.
Hundreds of elephants are there to be seen on an afternoon game drive with a population estimated at at around 70,000 elephants today and the Park is said to have the highest concentration of elephants in Africa. Many other species of animals are there to be spotted including waterbuck, lechwe, kudu, roan and sable, leopard, monkeys, bushbuck, warthog, giraffe, hyena and jackal.
Over 460 bird species have been verified in the park, making Chobe National Park one of Africa’s premier venues for bird Safaris. Common species to be spotted consist of the Sacred ibis, Egyptian Geese, carmine Bee-eaters, the ubiquitous cormorants anddarters, Spur-winged Geese, pel’s Fishing Owl, many rollers, Fish Eagles, the Martial Eagle, and many others.
Chobe National Park offers a range of experiences hard to match anywhere else on the continent. The dry months between May and October are considered high season, but even the rains from November to March have much to boast about, with animals giving birth and wild flowers flushing the landscape with colour.