Botswana's Timeless Wilderness

We begin our adventure as we wing to South Africa.

After arriving at O. R. Tambo International, we’ll be escorted to the Saxon Hotel, Villas and Spa in Johannesburg’s tree-lined suburb of Sandhurst. This luxury hotel has much to be proud of but says, touchingly, that its greatest “boast” is that the late Nelson Mandela chose the Saxon as his sanctuary at which to complete his autobiography, Long Walk to Freedom.

Our base in the miraculous Delta is beautifully shaded Kiri Camp, tucked away in a vast private concession. The intimate camp has many charms; unflashy luxury, great dining, and extraordinarily well-desighed tents, each raised on a platform with a private deck overlooking the hippo-thronged Delta waters.

While here we’ll game view by canoe in the Delta’s waterways, and take guided bush walks. All the classic African headliners are to be seen, sometimes unexpectedly. “One of the Okavango’s delights,” Frans Lanting writes, “is the sheer surprise of seeing an elephant emerge from underwater.”

A jaunty helicopter flight takes us southeast to a heart-stirring sanctuary, Elephant Havens, where we’ll delight in the impish behaviour of young, orphaned elephants. After our visit and some lunch, we’ll helicopter to the Khwai River and Monachira Camp, whose thoughtfully-realized tents open onto the floodplains and a marvelous variety of animals who wander these environs insouciantly, delighting us as we watch. And, among Moremi’s myriad charms, it gives us the chance to see the huge African night sky that ever captivated Elspeth Huxley, a sky “bristling with innumerable stars, as close-packed as the quills on a porcupine.”

A quick flight takes us northeastward to Savute Elephant Lodge, amid towering acacia trees in one of the continent’s greatest gamelands, the Savute Channel. This mighty waterway nurtures Chobe National Park, as it flows to and from the vast wetlands of northern Botswana. Our superbly appointed tented suites are raised above the ground on pillars to give our game viewing a lift. Off the main building, a waterhole attracts the area’s star residents, herds and herds of elephants, who gather to drink. Our worthy reasons to head into the bush, beyond seeking game, will be to take in a collection of ancient San Bushman rock paintings that date back more than 1,500 years.

Victoria Falls draws nearly universal praise, so here we’ll repeat something a good friend of ours once said: “Victoria Falls is billed as one of the world’s greatest waterfalls, but, as a matter of fact, it’s one of the world’s greatest anythings.” In other good news, we’ll be staying at the grand, colonial-era Victoria Falls Hotel, within walking distance of the incredible cataract.

We fly from Victoria Falls to Johannesburg, and on to a day room in the InterContinental at Johannesburg’s airport until our flight departure time.

Connect with your flights home and sweetly dream, perhaps, about your next Micato safari.