Travel reviews by Ms C from Orkney

"The whole experience at Muchenje Lodge and Chobe was excellent. The staff were welcoming and knowledgeable and the game drives were wonderful.

The view from the Lodge itself is amazing, down across the river where you could see zebra, waterbuck, impala and sometimes elephant and buffalo. On the game drives we saw lots of elephant, buffalo, giraffe, zebra, impala, warthog, kudu, baboon and waterbuck. We were also very lucky to see hyaena, jackal, lion and leopard and about 150 different species of bird."

"The location of Kwara camp in the Delta area and on the shores of a lake is wonderful. You can watch and listern to hippos from the camp. The activities, safari drive, boat safari and mokoro trip were excellent. The habitat here was so different from Chobe and so provided us with good opportunities of seeing some different animals. Over the three days we saw 21 different lions and 3 cheetahs. Also saw Tsessebe, Blue Wildebeest and lots of hippos in addition to elephants, giraffe, zebra etc. The boat trip out to the heronary was lovely and the heronary is amazing, so many heron, stork, egret, cormorant breeding on the island, we spotted nearly 20 different species. A wonderful place to have the 'sundowner'.

Kwara Camp itself was good but there were a few things that did not quite met the standard. The rooms were good but we couldn't understand why after making such a point about the importance of making sure the door was latched properly to keep baboons out they don't provide a latch on the inside of the door. This means when you are inside the room you have no means of keeping the door closed. This would be such a simple thing to resolve and could enable guests to feel a bit more secure at night. The food was reasonable but quite often not very hot. The staff were friendly and helpful but there were a few occasions when it was difficult to find someone if you wanted a drink from the bar or to look in shop. Despite these few things the safaris at Kwara were very good."

"The whole experience at Sandibe was excellent, the safaris, the variety of animals, the staff, service, food and rooms were all wonderful. On arrival we were welcomed with a 'refreshing towel' and a welcome drink and each time we arrived back from a safari we were welcomed with a 'refreshing towel' which was so wonderful.

Once again the habitat here was slightly different from the other two lodges. One of the highlights of the safaris here was seeing, on two differnet occasions, a pack of 18 African wild dog. The first time we came across them after they had finished a kill and they were in a playful mood. We were able to watch them playing around as it got dark and they eventually settled down for the night - what an amazing experience. Also got good views of steenbok, reedbuck, bushbuck and several different types of mongoose.

The rooms at the lodge were lovely and spacious. We got very close views of an elephant that had taken a fancy to fruits on the tree just outside our room and this really brought home why it is important that you get escorted back to your rooms after dark, you never know what might be round that corner!

The food at this was lodge was to a very high standard and always hot and freshly cooked."