Lions, lagoons and luxury — welcome to the Okavango Delta

At Sanctuary Baines Camp you can watch the wildlife from your bed

Footage of Williams’s flight over the Okavango Delta threatens to ignite the same wanderlust in cinema audiences as Ralph Fiennes’s Tiger Moth crossing the Sahara in The English Patient. I can see why. As my small plane descends towards the dusty bush runway I gaze down on a tangled web of ochre islands, many with white salt hearts, swaddled by shimmering prussian blue waters and weaved with threads of ilala palms and delta trees: a mesmerising 3D scan of the wilderness brain with pulsing neural pathways of ambling elephant and buffalo.

I’m arriving at the height of the annual flood — one of the continent’s great natural dramas. Fed by downpours in the Angolan Highlands, the surging Okavango River squeezes about 11 billion litres of water into the inland delta; its liquid fingers spreading across the Kalahari Desert. It promises a safari like no other.

Over the next two days I drive through deep channels, my bonnet vanishing beneath the surface as water deluges the vehicle floor. I watch red lechwe (a type of antelope) bursting across submerged grasslands in an explosion of spray, elephants using their trunks as snorkels to cross swollen rivers, and buffalo grazing on floodplain hippo grass. I rocket along twisting papyrus-lined channels in a speedboat and study pristine reflections of clouds and animals in millpond lagoons.

I also go local. Most visitors do. I catch a mokoro, one of the ubiquitous “Delta taxis” hollowed out of tree trunks. Or rather they used to be; to preserve the forest, they’re now fibreglass. It’s less romantic perhaps, but the sensation’s the same, as my guide, Galaxy, “poles” us across the flooded savannah, brushing through tall grass.

We float past eye-popping birdlife. Lilac-breasted rollers, malachite kingfishers and carmine bee-eaters suggest the Lord was in a particularly flamboyant mood on day six of creation. In the soft heat of late afternoon I close my eyes and meditate on the sounds: chirping cicadas, the slap of water on hull and Galaxy’s gentle tales of village life including his uncle’s three-day mokoro trips to the nearest shops. “At night he’d sleep on the islands and light fires to ward off lions.” Waitrose Click and Collect seems a tad mundane.

This year hasn’t been a vintage flood. Still, who’s counting drops? My intimate five-suite camp, Sanctuary Baines, only accessible by boat during the 2010 inundation, is in a plum position for wetland adventures. Built on the spot where the Victorian explorer artist Thomas Baines pitched his tent in the 1860s, it overlooks a tributary of the Boro River in the southeast delta.

A lion, one of the big cats that live in the delta

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Its dark wood floors and bushmen’s hunting paraphernalia are traditional safari fare but Baines is anything but predictable. An environmentalist’s dream, it’s built of empty tin cans collected by locals and smothered in elephant dung and termite sand — take that Grand Designs. With pointy roofs to cope with wet season storms it resembles a row of fairytale gingerbread houses. And then there are the unique beds. The camp’s mobile four-posters are wheeled out on to your raised private deck for a night under the southern hemisphere’s prolific stars. In the half-light of dawn I sit up in bed and watch three otters swimming dangerously close to a crocodile and hippo, all beneath a blizzard of quelea birds — a scene to ignite my inner Baines. In a nod to its namesake, the camp stocks each room with sketch pads and watercolours. An hour later I’ve finished. It appears a five-year-old has drawn Tooting Common with obese hippo and skyscraper giraffe.

However, the camp’s biggest treat is less cerebral, more active. Guests can take a bush walk alongside African elephants. It’s courtesy of Doug and Sandi Groves, patriarch and matriarch of a three-strong, semi-habituated herd, rescued as orphans from culling operations in South Africa and Zimbabwe. After bringing them to the delta in 1995, the couple camp alongside the animals’ compound, running tourist encounters to fund Living with Elephants, the foundation established to increase understanding between humans and jumbos.

It’s one thing to see an elephant from a vehicle, quite another to stand within inches of its tusks. Jabu is 11ft tall and weighs six tonnes. I can see every eyelash, every scratch on his ivory and every crevice on his hide. I can touch his soft armpit, hard elbow and smooth veiny ears. When three-tonnes Thembi emits a low rumble, it’s like standing next to an idling Harley Davidson.

As we walk, crossing lion prints from last night, the third herd member, Morula, “holds hands”, placing the inside of her trunk in my relaxed palm. What’s most startling, however, is the silence. Their huge feet pads, capable of detecting distant seismic tremors, hardly make a sound. The elephants also disappear at astounding speed. One minute they’re alongside me, the next their enormous buttocks are vanishing into the jackalberry trees, scattering feeding warthog.

South Africa Sandi and American Doug — “I’m just an elephant boy gone rogue” — combine easy manners with professorial knowledge, answering volleys of guests’ questions. I now know elephants can smell water 19km away, have 40,000 trunk muscles and, my favourite fact, Jabu “shows off by bending his 5ft penis into an S-shape and tickling his armpit”. Yes, that old chestnut.

I’m still buzzing from the encounter 24 hours later as I fly northwest into the delta’s heart. I’m after less friendly wildlife. Sanctuary Chief’s Camp, sitting on the eponymous island within the Moremi game reserve, is reputed to offer some of the Okavango’s finest game viewing. Originally the hunting ground of Batawana tribal chiefs, it’s dubbed the predator capital of Africa — and it doesn’t disappoint.

That’s partly thanks to brilliant guides. Martin combines X-ray vision with investigative nous, forensically examining prints, droppings and wind direction. He rapidly tracks down a leopard, resting in coarse finger grass. From a few feet I can see her yellowing fangs and each delicate rosette decorating her tan fur. Staff at Chief’s believe she was driven into the open by three trumpeting, testosterone-fuelled elephants we’ve recently passed. We later follow her slinking back to the tree branch where yesterday’s impala kill was dragged out of competitors’ reach.

Another day, another sleek killer. Two hundred metres away, in an ocean of honeyed grass backed by dense trees — slices of Chief’s Island resemble Norfolk’s autumn wheat fields — Martin notices a dark dot. It prowls slowly before exploding in a blur of fur. The cheetah, the world’s fastest land animal, is pursuing a reedbuck at about 75mph. It’s not enough. He closes on his prey but can’t sustain the pace. The buck lives to fight, or rather graze, another day. And we get to spend an absorbing sunset following the gold-eyed predator as he moves between patches of raised ground, scanning for the next potential victim: the endless dance of survival.

If the wildlife’s sensational, so is my camp. I arrive as Sanctuary Chief’s reopens after a multimillion-dollar rebuild. A favourite of Hollywood’s A-list and tech oligarchs, it now has 12 massive pavilions with front decks boasting plunge pools and chill-out gazebos above a floodplain seething with impala and warthog. Interiors are a chic riot of muted earth tones, screens of hanging white stones and pebble chandeliers alongside tangled twig uplighters and floor-to-ceiling windows that fold back for a soap-sud safari from your bath. The dining room sports huge monochrome animal prints and there’s a peachy swimming pool, excellent gym and petite spa whose heavily scratched glass door suggests Africology’s natural products work wonders for baboon wrinkles.

It isn’t cheap. Not much is around here with Botswana’s low-volume high-cost tourism, but along with slick accommodation, £800 a night buys you access to 300 sq km of an exclusive private concession. It’s why I find myself the sole spectator as a handsome male lion tears into a bloated hippo bull, recently killed by a territorial rival — gory drama that on most safaris would be surrounded by crowded vehicles.

Confession time. I’m not completely alone. Hundreds of vultures perch above me on dead acacia trees: a convention of undertakers waiting for the buffet to open. We’re close enough to see the crimson blood and mosquitoes around the lion’s snout and every flexing muscle as he bites into the sodden carcass. It’s not pretty. Flesh hangs off the exposed ribs and the scent of putrefaction scours the nostrils. I can’t complain; they’re the essential ingredients of an Okavango banquet. When I return next day there are no big cats or vultures, just a few bones. Nature’s brutal travelling theatre has moved on.

And so must I. My final stay, a 40-minute flight southeast of the delta, deals in the dry rather than the wet. Jack’s Camp — a clutch of vintage explorer tents dripping with antique furniture, display cases of animal skulls and fading sepia photographs — sits in the semi-arid Kalahari, kissing the fringe of the immense Makgadikgadi salt pans. It’s my chance to hang out with bushmen, ludicrously cute meerkats and thousands of zebra.

At sunset I ride a quad bike out into the “great nothing” of the Sua Pan. I sit alone; revelling in silence so complete it makes my ears ring. As stars and planets fresco the heavens, a ghostly glow burns above the horizon — debris from the formation of our solar system 4.6 billion years ago. Seretse Khama clearly missed a trick when he proposed to his lover on the Southbank in London. This is a different romantic league. Like my Okavango lagoon, Botswana’s savagely beautiful slice of heaven should be shared with someone special. Someone very special.
A United Kingdom is released on Friday

Taxi boats known as mokoros are ubiquitous along the delta

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Botswana on a budget
Botswana has the epitome of luxury safaris, with lodges frequently charging more than US $1,000 (£805) a day. However, the new safari operator Natural Selection (00 27 21 001 1574) aims to shake up the market with its less expensive camps. Hyena Pan (hyenapan.com) has eight simple en suite tents in the game-rich Khwai private concession bordering the Moremi National Park, or sleep under the stars in its “sky beds” on platforms in the trees. This costs $345-$465pp per night, all inclusive, plus daily park fees of $15.

Another way to keep down the costs is to travel in Botswana’s green season (November to June). Although it’s wetter and more humid, accommodation is cheaper, the landscape is lush and more photogenic, and animals such as antelope and zebra give birth, which tempts predators. In the green season, for example, you’ll get a four-night stay at Meno a Kwena (menoakwena.com) a quirky, owner-run camp alongside Makgadikgadi Pans National Park, for $1,612pp with Expert Africa (020 3405 6666, expertafrica.com). There, you can meet traditional bushmen, watch game from a floating hide or spot desert wildlife on drives, with all activities, meals, park fees and road transfers from Maun included.

Alternatively, explore the enigmatic Savute Marshes of Chobe National Park with &Beyond’s (andbeyond.com) Savute under Canvas mobile safari. The five en suite tents have all the home comforts you need but still allow for that back-to-the-bush feel and cost from $480pp. Fly to Maun on BA (ba.com) via Johannesburg from £970 return.
Sue Watt

Need to know
Ian Belcher was a guest of Abercrombie & Kent (01242 547702, abercrombiekent.co.uk), which has six nights’ full board in Botswana, with two each at Baines, Chief’s and Jack’s Camps, including game drives, walking with elephants excursion, local and international flights and transfers from £6,995pp.

More information
Depending where you are in the delta, peak flood occurs from May to August, then falls until February when local rains start raising water levels.