A review of Savuti Safari Lodge, Xugana Island Lodge and Chobe Game Lodge
We received this wonderful feedback from one of Celeste’s guests Lesley.
Lesley, Diane and William went on a Botswana Safari, visiting the Okavango Delta, Chobe Game Reserve and the Savuti area of Chobe. It sounds like they managed to see and do so much on their Botswana adventure!
Hello Celeste:
The trip worked perfectly. We were met, escorted, and taken care of impeccably.
The hotels were just fine. The Desert and Delta safaris more than exceeded our expectations.
Plane flights, food, accommodation, guiding, was wonderful. We are hard put to decide which was our favorite place.
Okavango Delta boat trip
In the end, I think it’s a tossup between Savuti Safari Lodge and Xugana Island Lodge because of their remoteness, but we probably saw the best game abundance and variety at Chobe Game Lodge, and a most extraordinary gathering of buffalo on the Caprivi plain. Diane liked the room at Chobe Game Lodge especially, but I liked all of them.
Savuti Safari Lodge Buffalo herd in Okavango Delta
We saw a very wide variety of game and birds, except rhino, gemsbok, and sable. Rhino and gemsbok would have been out of range for where we went anyway. We saw lions in prides with cubs almost daily at Chobe and Savuti, glimpsed leopards at Chobe and saw them nicely at Savuti; elephants everywhere including on the bush walks up close and personal; buffalo, zebra, giraffe, steenbok, buffalo, ostrich, scores of giraffe, wildebeest, hippos, crocodiles, jackals, spotted hyenas, kudus, impala, tssesebe, waterbuck, red leschwe, and satatunga clearly several times which is incredibly lucky.
Savute Safari Lodge Wild Dog sighting
And an absolutely astonishing wild dog hunt after a kudu, which is a tribute to the guiding. That is so rare as to be unobtainable. The kudu got away, to our relief. The wild dogs chased the kudu clear across the plain right past us, as in maybe twenty feet away. When they lost the hunt they came back out and stood around us within a few feet, then started another hunt after impala on the same plain. The impala took off and the dogs gave up. But we had three of them within a few feet of us. We have remarkable photos.
We also had an elephant right outside our room at Savuti, taking tree branches down a few feet away. The staff are absolutely doing their best to keep him out with almost daily additions to the electrical fencing but this is a very clever elephant. I’m sure there are other animals we saw that I’ve not listed here. We were also interested in the trees, flowers, and biomes we visited. The Delta was as magical as I’d dreamed of, and it was the best place to visit last.
I forgot the Vervet monkey and the baboons everywhere, plus different kinds of mongoose, and of course, warthogs. The Vervet monkey sighting was so unusual the staff at Savuti asked to see my photo to confirm I’d seen it. 🙂 I’m sure I’ll remember more animals when I go through my photos but we really enjoyed the three different locations and the different environments. Diane especially enjoyed being in the different areas. Bill didn’t really understand much of where we were but liked the Delta the most as he got to go fishing and we all loved the water landscapes.
We saw several dozen different kinds of birds, including four different kinds of eagles, all kinds of wading birds, bee-eaters, sunbirds, Meyers parrots, and kingfishers of different kinds.
We were also treated extremely well by the people we met as staff. It is unlikely that we will ever forget any of them.
Malachite Kingfisher in Okavango.
We have already decided that all things being equal, we will go to Etosha Pan next year. I’m not sure if we will go ourselves (just two), or if we will go with my brother and his wife, who live in Switzerland. I will be back to you to discuss that in the next few months.
We have around 6000 photos between the three of us. I’ll be sorting them out and will send you some of my best. However, I’d like to keep the copyright as I’ll be painting a good few of the wonderful animals we saw.
We also now know that we can pay for trips readily using the First State Bank of Rosemount. That was actually the most stressful part of the trip.
Thank you, from my heart, for all the help you provided. We are a happy group of customers.
