Travel reviews by Mr & Mrs C from Edinburgh

"We stayed just one night at this Lodge, having flown from Cape Town and flying on to Lagoon the next morning.

It was a very hot day but the Lodge was in all ways good. It's in an excellent location for a short stay like this and we would certainly recommend it for this purpose.

The room was spacious and comfortable and the food was good.

What was very good was the way in which we were met on arrival at Maun Airport, assisted in clearing all formalities easily, and were driven to the Lodge comfortably. Equally good were the arrangements for our departure the next morning."

"Lagoon Camp was excellent in every way. It was not entirely full at the time, perhaps less than half full.

It has a lovely position on the edge of the lagoon and a lovely feeling of being out in the wilds of Africa with no one else around. Away from the lagoon the countryside is quite bushy.

We had an excellent chalet, the food was excellent, the laundry was done very well and the staff were efficient and charming.

There was not a huge volume of wildlife, no large herds or groups, and few animals came down to the lagoon to drink, at least in the vicinity of the Camp. But there was a very good variety and the sightings we had were absolutely superb -- the stand-outs were a leopard and cub on a kill, lions drinking at the lagoon, wild dogs resting, magnificent male kudu and hundreds of carmine bee-eaters at their nests in the bank of the lagoon.

The guide and tracker were very good indeed. Altogether it was a wonderful three days."

"Lebala was another excellent Camp in all respects. Although not at the edge of flowing water like Lagoon and therefore no boat rides, the countryside is more open with some beautiful vistas and many areas of open water, some quite large.

Once again the chalet, the food and the laundry service were all excellent and the staff were also first class, efficient, friendly and charming. The Camp had very few other people staying and on our last day we were the only guests. Our guide, Mayezi, and tracker, KB, were absolutely first class with a great depth of knowledge not just of the animals but also the birds, trees and other vegetation and everything else about the area we were in.

The stand-out experience was a group of twelve lions -- three lionesses each with three cubs -- all except the youngest cubs (about two months old, who were too busy playing or suckling or doing a little gentle exploring) feasting on a sub-adult elephant which had died of natural causes. That was on the first and second days. By the morning of the third day there was nothing left of the elephant, the vultures had even cleaned its head absolutely white and the lions had disappeared. However, Mayezi's and KB's tracking skills came into play and they picked up their footprints in the sand. From those we soon found them and they had been joined by two handsome male lions. They all looked magnificent in the early morning sunlight. The interaction between the three youngest cubs, who wanted to play, and the male who was doubtless their father and who was classically not interested, was almost human.

Apart from this there was much else to see. We travelled down from Lagoon overland, changing from one Landcruiser to another at the "border". The scenery was beautiful. Apart from other wildlife we had an excelent sighting of another pride, this time of six lions, all in superb condition. On our other days in Lebala the wildlife was plentiful with some large herds of red lechwe and other plains game. Also some unusual, even rare sightings. These included a crocodile on the track well away from any water as if out for an afternoon walk, and an aardwolf at its burrow in the evening and again the next morning out in the open, striding purposefully forward. And in an amazing piece of spotting KB saw a chameleon on the track, no more than about 12cm long and almost the exact colour of its mottled green background.

Lagoon and Lebala make an excellent and easy pairings."

"My wife and I had been to Selinda Explorers before, some four years ago. We had enjoyed it so much we wanted to make a return visit. It was well worth it.

We travelled there from Lebala by road, again changing vehicles at the "border", which was much better than flying. The Camp has a wonderful location beside the Selinda Spillway. It is small, with only four tents, and has a marvellous atmosphere. We have loved the Linyanti area ever since our first safari in Botswana sixteen years ago; it is wild and open Africa in a nutshell.

Again everything about it was excellent, the tent itself, which now has running water (and so no more bucket showers), the laundry service (which was not there last time and, unusually for Botswana, will take all underwear), the food and the general care and attention. The staff were very friendly, charming and helpful. Once again the Camp was not full. It was explained that October is always a quiet month and that November was going to be busier but it seems that Botswana tourism has not yet fully recovered from the pandemic.

The scenery was varied and very attractive and so was the wildlife. Some of it was very dry and there was a sense that the rains were not far away. They do not use a tracker but our female guide (Oratile, Rati for short) was excellent. There was plenty of plains game and some lovely birds, including a very handsome sub-adult martial eagle.

The highlight was a superb male leopard, who was plainly on the prowl hoping to find some prey. We followed him for quite a while but he was out of luck and in the end just lay down to rest and, like any cat, pretended he really didn't care."

"Chobe Game Lodge was, of course, different from anything that had gone before. It is a large hotel set by the Chobe River within the National Park. My wife and I had been there on our last visit to Botswana four years ago. We had had such a good experience then that we wanted to try another visit.

The facilities at the Lodge were much the same as before: the rooms, the food, the service were all excellent and the staff were again very friendly and helpful. Again the Lodge was relatively empty. On offer were game drives in the Park early morning and late afternoon and boat trips on the river early and mid-morning and late afternoon. At this time of year it can be a magical place to see a huge number of elephant. We had had that experience before and we hoped for it again.

We almost achieved that. In light of the fact that we had already had nine days of game drives we chose to take the boat trips only, three times. On the first occasion, there were elephants everywhere, which had migrated up there in order to take advantage of the permanent water, which towards the end of the dry season was scarce elsewhere. By my no doubt very inexact reckoning we must have seen many hundreds of them, probably in excess of a thousand. Family after family, most of them with a good number of youngsters, came to the water's edge to drink voluminously and to enjoy just being in and near the water. Some crossed the main channel, using their trunks as snorkels in order to breathe when they were out of their depth and with the younger ones sometimes holding the tail of the one in front with their trunks for reassurance. They are such wonderful animals that my wife and I could happily watch them all day.

With the approach of the rains there was thunder during the night and a little rain. And at the water's edge next morning there was hardly an elephant to be seen. It was extraordinary how so many large animals could just disappear like that into the forest away from the river. We heard from some of those who had gone on the game drive that morning that they didn't see many either so they must have retreated deep into the forest away from the tracks that vehicles were confined to.

Apart from the elephants there were plenty of other animals such as baboons, kudu and impala which came down to the river to drink. There were also a number of crocodiles in or near the water, some of them very large, and birds, most notably fish eagles with their wonderfully distinctive calls."