Victoria Falls & Botswana

The mighty Zambezi River is the centrepiece for our stay at Victoria Falls which precedes a safari on the banks of the Chobe River in Botswana. One of the great rivers of Africa, the Zambezi rises near the point where the boundaries of Angola, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Zambia come together and travels southwards towards the Okavango Delta before fault lines in the Great Rift Valley cause it to change direction eastwards towards the coast of Mozambique. It appears at its most spectacular at Victoria Falls being twice the size of Niagara – 355ft. high and over 5500ft. wide!

Nearby, at a point where no fewer than four countries meet, lies Chobe National Park, a grassland reserve and one of the most prolific wildlife areas in Africa. The Chobe River system, which creates a series of natural lakes, islands and floodplain, forms a natural and political border with Botswana, the Caprivi Strip in Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Chobe is revealed as an area of extreme contrasts and a yearround variety of wildlife. Renowned for large buffalo and elephant herds, lion and zebra its best game spectacles are viewed during Botswana’s winter (from April to September) when the wildlife concentrates around water. Visiting during the rains is another story, photographers will find colours more brilliant and the light sharper; ornithologists are best rewarded (over 400 species!) when the summer migrants appear from November and vast herds of animals graze on sweet new grasses in watery green meadows with breeding flamingos. The wildlife is unlimited and easily tracked from a 4x4 vehicle, by small boat, on foot or as you glide silently across the water in a moroko (dugout canoe).