CHOBE NATIONAL PARK

The Chobe river runs along the northern border of Chobe National park. It risesin the northern Angola highlands, where it is called the Kwando, and travels enormous distances through Kalahari sands before reaching Botswana; here it becomes the Linyanti until it reaches Ngoma where it becomes the Chobe. Like the Okavango and Zambezi, the Chobe’s course is affected by fault lines which are extensions of east Africa’s Great Rift Valley. These three mighty rivers carry more water then all other rivers in Southern Africa.

The Chobe National Park was established in 1968. It covers approximately 11 700 square kilometres, encompasses floodplains, swamps and woodland, and bird and wildlife abound.

The Park has four distinc areas, each of which is known for a particular kind of wilderness experience.

Serondella skirting the Chobe River, in the northern reaches of the Park, is famous for its elephants. Most times of the year, but particularly during dry winter months, they can be seen daily, sometimes in their hundreds and even thousands.

Nogatsaa, about 100 kilometres directly south of the Chobe river in the middle of the park, the Ngwezumba River flows, also attracting large numbers of elephant and buffalo. In addition, the extensive system of pans, which retains water for much of the wet season, attarcts wildlife during the rainy summer months.

At Savuti, often described as one of, if not the best wildlife-viewing area in Africa today, Savuti boasts one of the highest concentrations of wildlife left on the African continent. Animals are present during all seasons, and at certain times of the year their numbers can be staggering? What you see and in what numbers depends on water availability, grazing conditions and migration, all of which are variable and related. But if you allow yourself adequate time here (a minimum of three to four days is recommended) you will probably see nearly all the major species : giraffe, elephant, zebra(seasonnaly), impala, tsessebe, roan, sable, wildebeest, kudu, buffalo, waterbuck, warthog, perhaps even eland; and accompanying predators including lion, hyaena, jackal, bat-eared fax and possibly even cheetah and wild dog.
Savuti is famous for its predators, particyularly its resident lion and spotted hyaena population. There was a privately funded research station here for many years.

The Linyanti region, west and south of the Chbe River, boasts a habitat similar to the Okavango (thrgough only a small part of it is actually in the Chobe National Park.